Go Where There Is No Path, And Leave A Trail

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley – Theodore Roethke

Everything you see in your life at this moment, is the result of choices you have made.  The door in the photo is clearly open, but you can’t really see the steps through it or what lies beyond it.  Some of the choices you have made in life, lead you in directions that you didn’t even know were there.

Sometimes behind the waterfall, there is a path into a valley that no one has discovered.

Sometimes we fall through a hole in the ground and discover a buried city.

Sometimes we have a flat tire on a desert road, with no spare tire to change it – and we find a dusty path that leads to a hidden cache of gold.

There is always a choice of following a paved road with lots of signs or walking down a dirt path.  To stay safe on the paved road or taking on the risk of the unknown dirt path and seeing for yourself the genius of the universal design for your life.

Or never trying to see what is behind the waterfall in the first place (it is dangerous and you might fall down and hurt yourself); to immediately climb out of that hole you fell into without exploring it (it’s probably full of spiders, snakes, and rats) and ignoring the possibilities of discovery all around you; to stay beside that car on the hot desert road and wait for someone to rescue you (so much more sensible than striking out on your own).

So, stop being so worried about the million and one things that can go wrong.  Start instead dreaming about, and getting excited about, what is around the next corner.

Whatever you chose to be the next destination, you should always aim just a little higher.  If you are aiming for the lower mountain, you won’t know if you could have climbed the higher one instead.

Don’t put off the higher mountain as your goal, thinking that you need to be realistic, that you need to go in small definable steps.  As the saying goes, “Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land on the stars”.   Don’t be afraid to get lost.  Even landing among the stars, changes you, your world, and maybe even the whole world.

No one saves us but ourselves.  No one can and no one may.  We ourselves must walk the path – Buddha

Friends, loved ones, mentors, teachers – they can all set you on what they think is the right path.  Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes they are “almost” right.

It is up to you to decide what the correct life path is for us, at this point in your life.  No matter what path you take in life, no matter where you go or end up, you take a little bit of everyone you know with you.

Have you heard those voices in your head?  Your parents, your favorite aunt or uncle, your grandparents, those special friends from school – those voices that make insane comments about what is taking place in front of you?

Mine are these comedian’s talking commentary during a boring office meeting (picture the old men in the balcony from “The Muppets”).  My son Sam’s voice comes into play during movies, when they are doing anything military or medical, telling me they are doing it wrong.

I believe that you have at least three careers in your life, and that they can be completely different.

You shouldn’t confuse the path you are walking with the destination that you are going to.

Once I have mastered something, I get bored.  When I get bored, I know it is time to start exploring something new to learn, to have a new destination.

I am still walking my life path, the path of learning more about the world, about me, and what new sights are on the horizon.  There are times that the path can be a little blurry, because I haven’t yet discovered where the path is taking me.  So, I keep walking and I get curious.  I know that when the path gets crystal clear, I have a new destination and new life experiences coming into focus.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it – Paulo Coelho

This doesn’t mean that I am just sitting on the path waiting for it to define itself.  When I sit, it is like stepping off the deep end of the river and just sinking to the bottom.

If I sit, the world tries to define me.  To make me fit someone else’s mold, to do the things that they want me to do and be.  Then I lose myself, sitting submerged and wondering why I can’t breathe.

I have to take the time, the effort and the work to define the path, so that each step brings the focus sharper and more defined.  I have to swim back up to the surface of the river and determine which shoreline I want to step onto.

Sometimes when you are walking down the path, everything goes wrong.  A forest fire races through the valley and destroys all of the vegetation.  The river overflows its banks and takes out the bridge you were walking across.  A 40-car pile-up in the fog totals your car.

Sometimes what seems like a life ending event, is actually the first step on a new path.

You had expectations of where the path should be taking you, and so you were actually sleep walking down the side path.  Because of your expectations, that path might have led you to the correct destination, but without the right experiences.

Have you ever seen someone famous implode right after they achieved critical acclaim for their talents?  Hollywood, Politics, Musicians – we’ve all seen them reach a pinnacle of success, then drugs, alcohol, sexual exploitation – and down they tumble into scandal.

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

This is due to them not having strong enough roots to support their growth.  Somewhere along the path to finding themselves, they didn’t get lost.  They missed valuable life experiences that would have grounded their roots.  That would have forced them to grow deeper and discover more about who they were.

Because they didn’t have these valuable experiences, they allowed others even with the best intentions, to rescue them from falling on their face.  They covered things up. They didn’t let them experience the results of bad choices when they were small failures.  So, they just kept being rescued and didn’t learn the life skills of what failure really means.

What you will discover from failure is that sometimes it is the best thing that ever happened to you.

You see new ways to do something, which would never have happened if everything went according to plan.  You discover wonderful character traits that were only exposed because you felt you had no other choice than to force yourself to up your game.

My favorite movie scene is from “Facing the Giants” in the death crawl scene.  The player goes all of the way down the entire length of the football field, thinking that he is only trying to make it to the 50-yard line.  He couldn’t see where he was, and he was crawling with another player on his back.

At first the coach is only trying to get him to the 50-yard line, then he realizes the player has more in him than either of them knew.  You are like that player, capable of so much more.  It is the difficult parts of life that open up the possibilities of your tasting some of that greatness you have buried deep inside.

So, remember “to keep the mind even” – not letting doubts or over-confidence tilt us.

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

Each day is a new adventure in walking your chosen life path.  Each day you can walk it in wonder, looking to see what is going to cross your path today.

You can be curious.  You can slow down and actually see what is on your right side, your left side, and directly in front of you.  Don’t miss the flowers that you’ve never seen in that color or shape before.  Look for the squirrels, bunnies, little lizards laying on the warm rock and enjoying the heat of the day.  Rest when you are tired.  Walk in the moonlight or lay back and count the stars.

This is your life path, your journey.  The world is full of friends, lovers, and new brothers and sisters waiting to get to know you.  The destinations are fun to get to, to master some aspect of your life.  But really, life is lived on the path, during the step-by-step walking, dancing, singing, along the road to the newest destination.  So don’t forget to enjoy it.

The journey is – Your Happiness.

Serenity Is Peace Amid Life’s Storms

 

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Move Outside Your Fears, Enter Through The Door Of Your Dreams

Updated 8/05/2018

So many times we ask the divine for help, for guidance.  The door is open, right there in front of us, but we don’t enter.  It could be that what we see beyond that door is not what we were expecting for the answer.  It could be that we are so caught up in the drama and chaos that we don’t even see the door.  We remain in our self imposed prison, feeling sorry for ourselves, and we are the only ones with the key.

Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.

  –   Corrie ten Boom

I was reading a book recently and one of the sub plot lines was that one of the main characters had seen in a vision that he killed one of the other main characters.  Sometimes what we see is a still point scene, meaning that it is just a flash of what the scene is about.  But we don’t see what happened before or after it.  Like this photo we just see a green mist.  It isn’t until we step through the door that everything becomes clear. To refuse the journey because of what we think might happen, is to live our life with fears chains limiting every move.  Be brave.  Trust who you are at the heart and soul level.  Unlock fears chains and walk through the door.

Fear knocked at the door.  Love answered and no one was there.

  –  Dr. Wayne Dyer

In the book I was referencing, she had been poisoned with a drug that would affect her brain in such a way that she would become a killer, no moral codes, insane.  And the same time, the sane part of herself would know everything that the insane part of her was doing.  She asked him to kill her.  Our divine destiny sometimes leads us to places unexpected.  Without knowing the whole story we look out that door and see a scene that we reject wholesale.  We judge it without an understanding of what is really going on. 

It’s better to look back on life and say, “I can’t believe I did that” than to look back and say, “I wish I did that”. 

  – Lessons Learned In Life

We need to walk through that door to begin the long journey to ourselves.  To unfold our own myths.  The ones that you grew up with.  Your sibling is the smart one (which made you the dumb one).  Your sibling is the athlete (which made you clumsy or uncoordinated).  Your sibling is musical (which made you tone deaf).  We could go on and on with the comparisons between you and someone else as you grew up.  The teachers who told you that you couldn’t do something, weren’t talented enough, whatever the rejection was that you accepted as fact.  Then there are the myths that you just told yourself, based on your own low opinion of who you are, and what you are capable of. 

If someone offers you an amazing opportunity and you’re not sure you can do it, say yes – then learn how to do it later.

  – Sir Richard Branson

And of course there are the hopes and dreams of those that love us, that aren’t the same as our own hopes and dreams.  I remember in the book, “Love, Medicine and Miracles”, one of the true stories was of a young man who had terminal cancer.  He was in college studying to become a doctor, because that was what his parents wanted.  When he found out he had cancer he quit school and went to play his violin which was his dream and passion in life.  Funny thing happened, his cancer went away.  When he started living his life purpose, he starting living his life. 

When opportunity knocks, don’t let fear hold you back.  Open the door and embrace the opportunity that has come forth.

 –  Live Life Fully

When he stopped letting fear of disappointing his parents stop him from being who he really was, he opened the door to the life he was supposed to be living.

Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker.  Failure is delay, not defeat.  It is a temporary detour, not a dead end. 

  – Denis Waitley

The other thing that keeps us from walking through that door is the voice that remembers that one time we fell on our face.  A complete laughing stock failure.  You don’t want that to ever happen again, so take no chances on walking through the door.  We need just enough courage to open that door and step through.  We need a new definition of what failure is.  Failure is a temporary detour.  It is the realization that failure is just a part of the process on the road to success.  Failure is not a stop sign.  It is a learning experience that we need to fully embrace.  To hold it in our arms, to hug it tight.  We don’t die from failure.  We do however stop living, if we let failure be a stop sign.

I’ve failed over and over and that is why I succeed.

  – Michael Jordan

In basketball you miss more shots than you make and you are still a success, why?  Because you keep trying, and you don’t sit in the stands and watch, not taking the shot.  You keep trying and you even though you miss some of the time, you also score some of the time.

Let the people discover you!  You might have the key of the locked doors in their lives!  Open yourself to the world; you might be the magic the world needs! 

  – Mehmet Murat Jidan

So many of us walk through life, trying not to be seen.  We are afraid of being judged, as not being worthy, of thinking more of ourselves than we should and being found a fraud.  But that is just a lie.  The more that we let people in, the more our life opens up.  The more that we be who we truly are without the limitations we put on ourselves.  The more that we help ourselves, the more we can help others do the same.  That is the change that the world needs.  To live out loud, who we are in our souls.  When we do that, we give others permission to do the same.

When you do things from your soul, you feel a  river moving in you, a joy.

  – Rumi

Walk through that door.  Don’t let the fear of change, of the unknown. of possible failure, keep you from living your life on purpose.

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Our Words Matter

 

And, yes, words matter.  They may reflect reality, but they also have the power to change reality – the power to uplift and to abase.

William Raspberry

I think that all of us heard the nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but word will never hurt me”.  And all of us have been hurt by the words of others.  Sometimes the words of bullies as they seek the soft spot that will create pain.  Sometimes the words of loved ones, when we fight and say mean and hurtful things to those we love.     Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto did an experiment in a elementary school classroom in which he placed two jars of cooked rice.  Each day the kids in the classroom had to pass by these jars and say the words taped on the jar.  On one jar the words were “Thank You” and the other jar the words were “You Fool”.  After 30 days the jars were removed.  The jar with “Thank You” contained rice that looked like it had been cooked that morning, white and fluffy.  The other jar with the words “You Fool” had shrank into a black shriveled gelatinous mass.  Words have an energy that affect both the speaker and the listener.  

Words matter and the right words matter most of all.  In the end they’re all that remains of us.

John Birmingham

There are others words that matter.  The words that we say to ourselves in our heads.  Like “your so stupid” or “you always make the wrong decisions” or “You’ll never get it or do it right”. . , and so on and on.  Words that say that we are not good enough.  Never say words that make your body or your accomplishments in life a joke.  Stop name calling and self criticism to yourself, as well as others.  We are all at any moment in time doing the best we can, with what we know and understand in that moment.  We can all do and be better.  It requires us to be conscious of the words coming out of our mouths.  Surround yourself with positive, uplifting words.

You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times.  But in the end, it’s always their actions you should judge them by.  It’s actions not words that matter.

Nicholas Sparks

Do we put actions to our words, our intentions to be better, to do better?  Do we keep trying to walk towards a better life, or when we trip and fall down do we sit there in lamentation and say it’s no use.  That we are who we are, and we can’t do it.  I always think of babies when they are learning to walk.  They tip over and over and over.  They fall so many times.  And each time they get up and try it again.  Although they can’t tell you, they are learning from each failure how to achieve balance.  It isn’t something learned on the first, second or even 50th try.  But they all – 100% of them keep trying.  And once they are walking it seems like almost instantaneously they are running.  They don’t let anything hold them back.  Do we put the same kind of actions to the words that we speak?

No matter what people tell you it’s words and ideas that can change the world.

Robin Williams

Just as words can create wars, they can also create positive change in the world.  Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” words changed the world.  Look at what has happened in the past few years with the movements that have been created to bring something positive out of their own pain as survivors, or of families of those who lost loved ones.  Drugs, gun violence, racism, those sold into sexual slavery, sexual harassment/assault – all have created hashtag movements – #MeToo –  #NotOneMore – #TakeAKnee – #BlackLivesMatter – #BringBackOurGirls – and so on.  Your views of what was done to try and make positive change may not agree with all of the attempts to find social justice, but they do prove that words and ideas can change the world.

In every encounter in life we either give life or drain life.  Their are no mutual exchanges.

Brennan Manning

Always remember that your words carry weight and bearing in the lives of others.  Choose them wisely.  When we speak words of hate, we find ways to support those words.  We actually see the world through a “lack” mentality.  We blame all of our problems on “Them” – whatever group “Them” is.  We see the world through that lens and it distorts what we see to fit the viewpoint we have adopted. 

The same is true of having a positive outlook on the world and the changes that take place in it every day.  Every day someone’s smile brightens the life of another.  Every day a policeman or fireman or paramedic saves the life of someone.  Every day someone says no to drugs.  Every day someone refuses to join a gang and live a life of violence.  And every day someone who has been caught up in a world of drugs, alcohol and violence says no to continuing to live that lifestyle.  The life we life and the world that we see is viewed through the lens that we have created.  At any moment in time we can change the lens.  Right now at this moment, someone is reading or seeing something that moves them to change that lens.  To start one more time living a life that brings positive change not just to their life, but those around them, spreading it to the whole world.

. . . words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think . . ,

Words Matter Week, 2014

Each day we design the life that we are living.  All of the small daily decisions add up to the day we live.  It is so easy to get caught up in the news.  Depending on the stations we listen to we are fed a diet of everything that is wrong in the world, from a specific viewpoint that always says that the other guy is wrong.  We don’t debate ideas from the news, we fling judgments against other.   We are subconsciously refusing to hear the emotions, the hurts, the “reasons” why they are saying those words that damage others lives.  

 

Words are free.  Its how you use them that may cost you.

Kushanwizdom

Words have meaning in the context in which they are spoken.  Say the word fire – at a family barbeque.  Say the word fire – in the workplace.  Say the word fire – in a crowded venue.  The family barbeque uses fire to cook the food, and it’s a normal safe word to say.  Say the word fire in the workplace, and you will get a negative emotion running immediately.  Either yourself or someone you know has just lost their job, their means of support for themselves and their family.  It is sad, threatening, humiliating, depressing, and so stressful, not only to the person fired, but to the whole office.  You also may feel guilty because you feel relieved that it wasn’t you, that your safe.  Say the word fire in a crowded venue and you have people fleeing for their lives.  You will see them stampeding towards any exit.  Some people will be so scared, traumatized or selfish that they literally run over others trying to escape.  Some people will become heroes, saving the lives of others, even if it means that they die trying.  Words in the context of how they are used reveal things about ourselves that we never knew or acknowledged before.

 

Your words matter.  A wider world is waiting to hear your story.  When will you have the courage to tell them?

Peter Thomson

 

You crafted the stage you’re now on, so that you’d be pushed on to discover your power, the dreams worth pursuing, and the passion to create them into reality. In the lives that we have lived so far, we have created illusions to support who we think we are.  To support who we are capable of being.  These illusions have created and supported your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.  It is up to us to ask the questions from a place of curiosity as to what of our beliefs are illusions.  To question how we gathered these thoughts and facts into truths that are somehow cemented into unbiased realities that we refuse to change. 

We live in a world of possibilities.  We all have potential that we haven’t fully plumbed or realized.  Facts change every day.  Every day some new scientific discovery is made.  They used to say that man couldn’t fly.  That if God wanted man to fly he would have given him wings.  It was a fact.  Then curious men created planes, rockets, hot air balloons, space ships and so on.  Then flying through the sky became a cemented fact.  Every new “truth” discovered requires that we change a previous truth.  

Curiosity creates the possibility of a new word, or truth.  Words give us a trail to follow.  Intention brings action to the words and creates new truths, new meanings to the words.  It creates a life journey of discovery, of continually learning new things not just about ourselves, but our world.  As the Star Trekkers say, “To go boldly where no man (or woman) has gone before”.  Stay curious, stay hungry for more, live in the moment, and most of all create peace and happiness in your life.

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Dreamers Touch The Stars And Change The World

For many people, authentic life starts at the time of death – not our own, but someone else’s – Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

This is so true for me.  It was the murder of my nephew that changed my whole life.  Up until that time my lived was lived by following what others had either taught me or expected of me.

The lesson I learned from my mother that drove me, was to have a career that earned a great income so that I would not be like her and end up homeless with her children.  In her mind her only option was to return to a marriage that she had left behind because it would provide support for her children.

At first after my nephew died, it was all about helping my sister survive the storm of grief that ripped her world into tiny pieces that we couldn’t put back together again.  Then once we all knew that she while she wasn’t fully recovered, she was surviving and learning what her new life would be, it was time to deal with my own grief.

I knew that I wanted to bring something positive out of his death and so I started writing my way through my own changing and evolving world.  I had wanted to be a writer since I was a small child.  But I didn’t have any confidence to begin the journey.

Each time my heart and soul drew me into that space I had a ready excuse as to why I couldn’t do it.  I have four children to raise, a fulltime career and husband to take care of.  So, I would lie to myself about the reason why I didn’t have the time to write.

People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny harmless phrases like “Be Realistic”  – Dylan Moran

First it was when the kids were all in school, then I would have time to write.  Then it was when they all graduated high school, then I would have time to write.  Then it was taking care of my dad who had retired early with disabilities, so now I had a new obligation to put off this dream of writing my own stories.

Always there was something more important to be done.  Besides I told myself, be realistic, “no one will want to read what you write”.  As I wrote my way through changing myself and posted it on my personal page, I kept being told by others to do more.

Self-confidence is something that Walt Disney had to have had.  He had businesses that failed and ended bankruptcy. He lost most of his employees and a big contract to a film producer that had been working with him.

What he discovered and what I discovered was that when one door closes another opens.  For him that lead to the creation of Mickey Mouse, who actually has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For me, it was discovering that this dream that I had buried as not being worthy of was in fact possible.  The writing on my personal page, created the self-confidence to create the LemonadeMakers page here on Facebook and a website that we are slowly expanding to create even more material for our followers.

In the words of Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu: “When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be.”

As I walk this journey of following my dreams, I get ideas of where it might be taking me, but I don’t really know what I am becoming.  I still feel constantly as though I am in the chrysalis and becoming something new.  I am still being stretched into unknown realms.  I am constantly learning, adapting and regrouping.

I fall down on my face, but I keep getting back up.  I brush off the dirt and dust and look in the mirror.  It is the act of constantly letting go of the life I thought I should have, that I am able to embrace the life that is waiting for me.  It is the constant asking of these three questions that keeps opening new doors of discovery for me.

• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I would succeed at whatever I did, what would I want to do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I had millions of dollars in the bank right this moment, what would I do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I only had 6 months life to live in this life, what would I do in that time frame with my life?

When you ask those questions, sit with them in silence a few moments and see what bubbles up to the top for you.  When you boil some sort of vegetable, a lot of times there is this film of stuff that spreads across the water.  A sort of scum that I always ladle out of the boiling water.

This is what happens when we sit in silence with a question.  Our minds float up a denial.  It floats up a distraction.  If floats up fears.  Just look at them without judgement and scoop them out and let them settle into the earth.

Now return to the silence and contemplation and see what bubbles up next.  Write it down and see what else floats up to the top.  Keep writing until you have a list of things that you would do next.

Dreamer (n) A person who visions their ambitions to plant the seeds of their future

/ Dreams are realities in waiting/

Now take that list and put the items into two columns, column A and column B.  So that if you had 10 items, you would now have 5 lines with an answer under column A and B for each line.  Now ask yourself which draws me more – item A or item B and circle that answer for each of the five lines.  Now you should have 5 circled items left.  Do the same process, only now taking the first circle item to the next circled item and keep picking between the choices until you have only one circled item.  You now have the winning thing you would do next.

So, let’s say just for sake of example it was to learn to fly a plane.

Now google local flying instructions and make appointments to interview them.

Pick one and take your first lesson.

It’s really that simple to let go of who you are, a dreamer with no action taken to accomplish his/her dreams, and a dreamer who makes a phone call and gets into a plane and takes their first lesson.  If it turns out that you discover flying isn’t something that “rings your souls bell” then go back to your list and go through the items again to see what else might be the next dream to accomplish.

Awaken To Your True Self And Take Flight

Everyone has the perfect gift to give the world – and if each of us is freed up to give the gift that is uniquely ours to give, the world will be in total harmony – Buckminster Fuller

The journey we are all on, individually, has interesting intersections.  Places where we have almost identical experiences.  Places where we are on the same page at the same time.  Wherever we are traveling on the map, someone has been there before us, and someone is just behind us.

We are driven by a hunger to express who we really are, and at the same time, we are like, “wait, wait, I’m not ready”.  Our choices reflect our greatest dreams and our deepest fears and insecurities.

Do you remember when you went to a playground or maybe it was at school recess – the first time that you climbed up the ladder of the slide and looked way down to the bottom?  It seemed so far below us and really scary.

Maybe you went right back down that ladder too scared to go down the slide.

Or maybe you went down the slide but remained in total control by gripping the sides of the slide so that you just eased yourself down to the bottom very, very slowly.

Or maybe you threw caution to the winds and went down the slide screaming at the top of your lungs and ran as fast as you could to climb back up the ladder and this time to try it backwards.

We as human beings have this amazing capacity to be reborn at breakfast every day and say, “This is a new day.  Who will I be?” – Jack Kornfield

• How many things in your life have been like that slide experience?
• How has this pattern showed up in your life?
• Do you blunt your own truth?
• Do you not fully commit to anything in life?
• Do you like to stay in the lines, and play safe with life by staying within your comfort zone?
• Do you avoid pushing boundaries at home, at work, when exercising, in every area of your life?
• Are you setting goals or New Year’s Resolutions that are not really growing you or breaking out or through anything that you did last year, or the year before that . . ., all the way back 5, 10, or 20 years ago?
• Is RISK a dirty four-letter word to your brain?

When you move forward, is it from consulting your own inner guidance, or from following the advice of others?  You awaken and become conscious of your purpose in life when you stop looking outside for the answers that can only be found inside of us.

Sit in silence and listen to the soft voice of your heart.  To the guidance of your soul.  This divine guidance comes to us through the voice of intuition.  When we start to live our life from this authentic place, our soul becomes visible.

The more you trust intuition, the more empowered you become, the stronger you become, and the happier you become – Gisele Bundchen

Do you move forward without design with “a leap of faith”, like racing down that slide in childhood.  Or do you continue to walk down well-worn and well-known paths based on your need to control everything in your life? Like gripping the sides of that slide to control your slide to the bottom.

Do you get vulnerable and put yourself out there, or do you draw back into your quiet safe corner where you can’t be seen or heard?  We mistakenly think that when we keep safe, that we are avoiding being hurt.

The truth is when we are not taking that leap of faith, we are suffering a far greater pain.  We suffer in life, from not living our purpose.  We suffer the regrets of not living a fully lived life. That leap of faith is the road to the happiness.  The road to living a life well lived.  Of stepping up into transforming not only ourselves, but the world we live in.

Think of people who became “obsessed” with something – Jane Goodell, Mother Teresa. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, all come to my mind.  All people that when you hear their name, you think of the “thing” or purpose that gave meaning to their life.  Their message comes through loud and clear.  You associate their name with the message.

It isn’t only their life that was changed by their following their passion.  Their life purpose actually changed the world.  They have literally become a living archetype, a soul on fire.

In a world where everyone wears a mask, it’s a privilege to see a soul – Unknown

Watching a candle flame is watching the transformation of fire.  It dies down and flames up over and over again.  It is constantly changing – it changes directions, it changes height, it changes width – in any one second it is not the same as it was the previous second.  It reacts to the slightest breeze in the room.

When we awaken, there is a fire that starts burning within our soul.  We awaken to our true nature, as everything that doesn’t belong gets burned away.  We start to get glimpses of what our truth is.  We see the masks of conditioned behaviors and patterns that need to be removed, as they don’t serve us.  Like a mirror we see reflected back to us what is holding us back. We see that the walls that our patterns built to protect us, are in fact keeping us from living to our full potential.  When we see life from our soul’s perspective, we see that there are no obstacles, only guidance.

Don’t let life’s challenges harden your heart, let them empower your mind, renew your spirit and strengthen your soul – Babz

Dreaming With Your Eyes Wide Open Is Self Empowerment

As children you believe that your parents are invincible, indestructible, and that they will never let you down.  Then the unthinkable happens and they do.

Then when you are older and you think wiser, you fall in love for the first time.  As you view this person through rose colored glasses, seeing no faults, but only the perfection of your love, you place them upon a pedestal thinking that they will never hurt you.  Then the unimaginable happens, and they break your heart.

It isn’t your parents or your best friend, or your first love that let you down.  It is your own expectations, which were unreal.  You are broken hearted by your own projections of who who you wanted them to be, which was something that no one could live up to.

“The strongest source of empowerment is that which we find within ourselves” – Brett Blumenthal

What you discover is that it is unfair to put someone else in charge of your life.  It is unfair, because each person is responsible for themselves.  Handing it off to someone else will only hurt both them and you.  When you build your house upon the foundation of your soul, and take it’s direction, then you can add those you love to connect to your souls home.  You add your spiritual beliefs, your family, your friends, your career – everything you want in life, but the empowerment that comes from that foundation is what makes everything run.

“I came to believe that my identity goes beyond the outer roles I play.  It transcends the ego.  I came to understand that there is an Authentic “I” within – an “I AM”, or divine spark within the soul” – Sue Monk Kid

The roles you play, being a wife or husband; being a mother or father; being a son or daughter, being a grandmother or a grandchild – those roles can make you happy, but they are not the source of the happiness.  The source of the happiness comes from within.  Otherwise you are burdening your happiness on the expectations of those roles, burdening your loved ones unfairly with the responsibility of making you happy.  That is dooming yourself to be the perpetrator of a broken family filled with trauma and drama.

“We simply can’t control what comes out of people’s mouths.  However, we can control how we feel about what they say”  – Scarlett Jones

The same thing is true for your friends and those you work with.  You can’t base your happiness on what those around you say or do.  Or don’t say or do.  Have you ever worked really hard on a project at work, and no one noticed your brilliance?  Were you trying to be brilliant to have others laud you, or because you loved exceeding the expectations of others?

I love it when someone notices I did a good job, beat the deadline, came in under budget, etc.., but it needs to be for your own empowerment that you feel good about it.  Then if someone else does notice, that is whipping cream on the dessert, good when it is there, but not necessary to be enjoyed as a great dessert.

Have you ever planned a trip with the girlfriends and then were disappointed when others didn’t contribute and left all of the work for you to do?  What really caused the unhappiness?

Miscommunication, unrealistic expectations of others?  What about if you come from the viewpoint of creating an experience of joy?  Being authentic enough to ask for help when you need it, without expectation of how the help shows up.  Creating from that place is a gift to yourself and to those others who will be there.  It takes all of the drama out of the experience, leaving a space of “WOW” for what is created.  It makes you vulnerable to the beauty of what happens next.

Using the analogy of the butterfly.  The caterpillar is vulnerable in creating the chrysalis, not knowing how it will all turn out.  Knowing that the transformation is necessary, doesn’t make it any easier to do it.  The butterfly is vulnerable as it fights to get released from the chrysalis, dry its wings so that it can take flight.  It is a beautiful creation that can’t see the brilliance of the colors and designs of its own wings.  Putting your own human thoughts into the analogy, this transformation into something new would be terrifying.

“Your authentic self is the source of your brilliance.  It’s the universal you – the person you always thought you could be before your fears and beliefs about what is really possible reined in this brilliant reality.  Getting in touch with the source of your brilliance and staying connected will make you shine every day.  Tapping into your intuition is how you will discover your authentic self and your true brilliance” – Angela Artemis

There is no manual provided when you tap into intuition and transform your life from the ego driven life, to the life of being self-empowered and fueled from within.  It is a journey of self-discovery.  It is scary and terrifying because you will almost certainly fall and have to get back up many times.

You also have the joy and satisfaction of knowing that it is your own magnificent journey.  There is a tunnel that you drive through when you travel to Yosemite National Park.  On one side of the tunnel you have beautiful mountains and trees and you think this is what the park is about.  Then as you emerge through the tunnel it is like arriving on another planet.  While what you saw before the tunnel was beautiful scenery, it pales in comparison to the vista that opens before you as you exit the tunnel.

Discovering your true authentic self and living from that place is like coming out of that tunnel.  You thought you were happy before, but it pales in comparison to the true source of happiness when you live from within.   Your soul becomes visible to yourself and others.  It opens the door to soul to soul connections.

Have you ever met someone and it is like you’ve known them your whole life in 5 minutes?  That is a soul to soul connection.

Every day you connect, lose connection and reconnect to that brilliance of your soul’s intuition.  You learn to believe in your future self.  It is like the beauty of that butterfly taking flight.  Miracles take place every day.  Tap your true potential.  Spread those wings and fly.

As always, LemonadeMakers is here to help if you ever need someone to coach you to your magnificence.

Being A Warrior of True Strength

What I love about this quote with the photo I found, is the dichotomy of how part of her seems to be like the ancient stone and part of her is golden and light filled, looking like she is still alive fighting her battles.  When we are fighting a desperate battle, sometimes it feels like we can’t take one more step.  Like we have turned to stone.  Like the internal battle between what we know we have to do (taking the next step) and how we feel (we can’t move another step) is literally dividing us and tearing us in two.

Remember how far you have come, all the battles you have won, the fears that you conquered, and tell that person who is trying to bring you down to go to hell.

  – Unknown

We all have several groups or individuals who tear us down.  Those well meaning friends and loved ones who don’t want to see us get hurt, so they tells us that we can’t or shouldn’t try to be successful in our chosen endeavor.  That we are risking too much.  That we are doomed to fail.  That it is impossible, so why take the chance of evitable failure?

Be the person who stays strong even when you have every reason to break down.

  – Unknown

Then there is that group that just can’t bear for someone to be successful and so they tear down others to make themselves feel better.  They are too afraid to take any kind of risk that would have the potential of making them look bad.  Bullies fall into this category.  They can’t stand seeing someone better at something than they are, so they tear you down whenever you show any desire to have a better life or be a better person.

Our greatest battles are those with our own minds.

  – Jameson Frank

And lastly the worst group of all, our own minds.  That voice inside of our head that tells us all of the reasons why we shouldn’t try.  That reminds us of every failure we have had starting at birth and going forward through time to this very moment.  That tells us the horror story of everyone who has tried and failed in the history of mankind.  That voice that will not shut up and that we can’t escape from.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

  – Margaret Thatcher

It doesn’t matter how many battles we fight and lose.  It doesn’t matter how many battles we have to fight over and over again.  What matters is that we fought. That we learned something from it.  That we not only survive the battle, but that we thrive after we have either won or lost it.  I heard this analogy and I loved it.  Everything comes out in the wash!

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.

  – German Proverb

Every problem that we see as something that will take us out of the battle, that seems insurmountable, think of the problem like a washing machine.  The problem may twist us in a knot, it may spin us around until we lose our balance and fall down.  It may knock us down the hillside, and as we roll through the mud, as the rocks cut at us, and the nettles sting us, in the end, we will come out cleaner, brighter and better than before we entered the wash.  This is because “everything comes out in the wash”.  Meaning that coming out the other side, meaning that whether we win or lose, we were not defeated.  We are only defeated when we quit.

In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.

  – Unknown

I love this!  All you have to do is watch commercials to see how profitable self doubt is.  We are taught to have a “lack mentality”.  The saying that you can’t be rich enough or skinny enough, or beautiful enough.  That we need to spend more money on things, to have the latest cars, the latest gadget, to sculpt our bodies with surgery, to move to a bigger and more expensive home, to ask our doctor for the latest designer drugs that have more side effects than the issues they are supposed to cure.  All ways to make us happy, when none of those things will make us happy.  The place to start is to love ourselves and then build from that space the life that spreads that happiness out into the world.

When life demands more of people than they demand of life – as is ordinarily the case – what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death.

 – Tom Robbins

I was asked today what LemonadeMakers is all about.  This quote really states it pretty well.  When my nephew was murdered, and when anyone in life has such a life shattering moment occur, you really have two choices.  You can demand more of yourself, and surmount the problem.  If you don’t, then the second choice is defaulted to.  You fall into resentment, victimhood, depression, etc. . , you stop living life and you start existing until death takes you out of life.  I didn’t want our family to fall into that deep crevasse and be buried alive until they died.  I wanted us to transform what had happened to us, into something that happened for us.  I wanted to bring something positive out of that debilitating experience and share it with you.

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

  – Charles Swindell

Successes in life come from struggles.  The butterfly has to fight to release itself from the chrysalis.  If you open it up, the wings become deformed and it can’t fly.  We are the same.  The fight to transform life’s lemons into lemonade is what strengthens us and makes the transformation more than a temporary change.  When we have struggled to fight the inner demons; when we have fought the uphill battle of addiction; when we have taken step after step through the mud and swamps of personal failures – we know that we will never, ever, go back there.  That we will never again, ever, allow anyone to make us feel like we aren’t worthy of a seat at the table.

“Too many times we stand aside

And let waters slip away

’til what we put off ’til tomorrow

Has now become today

So don’t you sit upon the shoreline

And say you’re satisfied

Choose to chance the rapids

And dare to dance the tide . . “

  – Unknown

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Every Great Dream Begins With A Dreamer

“In order to save myself, I must destroy first the me I was told to be”  – The Dreamer

 You were born a dreamer.  All you have to do is watch any small child.  You can see their dreams, their imaginations running wild.  They create whole worlds with blankets and pillows, some Legos and Hot Wheels, Dinosaurs and some plastic green Army Men.  Whatever they can get their hands on.  If you give them a few tools they will cut and saw out some boards and hammer together a space ship, then put on their capes to go out to save the world from alien invaders.  The horrible thing that happens to you as you grow up, is that you let go of your dreams.  You became a realist and make your possibilities into a small safe comfort zones.

“There are only two kinds of people in this world.  The realists and the dreamers.  The realists know where they are going and the dreamers have already been there”  – Robert Orben

You need to destroy your comfort zone and remember that you are a dreamer and you have unlimited potential.  Your dreams were designed to custom fit your personality.  If you let them, they will continue grow and expand as you do.  They will follow you all of your days, growing greater and grander as you do.  When Walt Disney was laying in the hospital dying, he had his newest dreams taped up on the ceiling so that he could look up at them and continue to plan their realities.  As long as you continue to learn, to grow and expand, so will your dreams.  Dreams are your future realities, waiting in the wings to come out on the stage of life.

“The dreamers of the day are dangerous people.  For they dream their dreams with wide open eyes, and make them come true”  – D.H. Lawrence

I am always amazed when I read an old science fiction book or look at some of the drawings of someone like Leonardo Da Vinci.  He created on paper the bicycle, the helicopter, and an airplane.  What powerful dreamers they were.  At the time, they were writing about a future they could only see in their minds eye.  They made up inventions that had us deep within the oceans, that had us exploring the galaxy, that had us beaming a person from the land mass of a planet, up through space and into the interior of a space ship.

“Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended”  – A.P.J. Abdul Kalam

Over time, inventors have been catching those concepts or thoughts, and they have been bringing them into reality.  They invented deep sea diving suits, and submarines and special mini subs that could go even deeper.  You have the ability to see the ocean floor from satellites deep in space.  They took us to the moon and back.  Now we go back and forth on a regular basis to a space station.  I saw a news piece about how someone is building personal small helicopters that will fly themselves and be used in the near future to take us to work.  While this isn’t the flying car that turns into a brief case we saw on the George Jetson cartoons, it is getting closer to a reality.

“All successful people, men and women, are big dreamers.  They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision”  – Brian Tracy

When you are a dreamer that puts action steps into your dreams, you discover a number of things.  You discover what hard work really looks and feels like.  You discover the real cost of sacrificing everything to make the dream into reality.  You discover that the price isn’t as large as fear told you it would be.  You discover that every time you fall down, every time it doesn’t work out like you thought it would, that every single failure, is just a way to show you a new viewpoint into what you are bringing into the worlds reality. You discover that failures are just stepping stones to greatness.

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

Every night you tossed and turned trying to figure out the right way, and all of the struggles you have or will go through, are in the end are the price tag of the ever expanding new you.  Each and every price tag that you pay for .. . every single failure, is what is leading you to the mastery of the idea, and the fulfillment of the concept.  The steps of the completion of the dream, becomes a part of the never ending journey to which we all sign up for.  You gain a true understanding of the words, “it is not the destination that matters, but who we are becoming along the way”.

“Yes, I am a dreamer.  For a dreamer is one who can find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world”  – Oscar Wilde

Dreamers Steer By The Stars, SO . . .

Follow your Dreams

Make a Wish

Dream Big

Take a Chance

Believe Big

Make a Change

Taste the Sky

Find the Fire Within

Follow Your Passion

Hold the Vision

Trust the Process

Live Your Life In The Light Of Dreams And Possibilities

Sometimes you just need an adventure to cleanse the bitter taste of life from your soul

  – Unknown

One of the processes many of us go through at the end of the year is to go through the year that is passing.  We look at our highlights, both good and bad.  The successes we celebrate and the failures we sift through for the good pieces hidden in the ashes.  I think that one of the things to plan for the new year is an adventure.  It could be as simple as a hike up into the mountains where we can just sit in the silence and commune with our soul.  Or it could be that we take a trip to somewhere we have never been.

It could be within driving distance of where we live or we could travel to a foreign country.  What it needs to be is an experience that is something totally out of our comfort zone.  Doing this gives us a new perspective in our life.  It shifts our viewpoints and sometimes it changes our life in unforeseen ways.

The secret of making dreams come true can be summarized in four C’s.  They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy; and the greatest of these is confidence

– Walt Disney

When we take the time at the end of the year or the beginning of the new year to look at our life, we need to be gentle with ourselves.  Going deep within using Disney’s four C’s will unlock things in our heart, soul and mind that we didn’t know where there.  In talking to my life/business coaches a thought floated to the surface around money.  Years ago, when I would be in a discussion around money with my husband, I would say I wanted to have something physical to show in my hands for the money that I spendt.  I haven’t said this for years, but it brought to the surface a belief about money that was hidden within me that needs to be released.  When you approach these hidden beliefs without judgement, but instead curiosity it becomes so easy to let them go.

To breathe your own truth is your heart’s most burning desire.  To live your purpose is your soul’s lifelong dream.

  – Dodinsky 

Don’t be at war with yourself when you look at the blocks that you have.  We all have some beliefs, which block the path to our soul’s dream.  Instead get curious.  Give your basic life tools the chance to work, by working with them.  Meditation, journaling, routines to take care of your health, living in gratitude for what each day has brought to you.  Instead of challenges, you believe that you have opportunities for growth.

Live your truth.  Express your love.  Share your enthusiasm.  Take action towards your dreams.  Walk your talk.  Dance and sing to your music.  Embrace your blessings.  Make today worth remembering.

  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Taking down the walls you have been building your whole life to expose yourself as you really are.  True freedom doesn’t have limits to who you can be.  Taking up the practice of something new to grow your soul is completely dependent on your realizing it doesn’t matter that you do it well or badly.  Just that you do in fact do it.  You are the one who decides that an experience or change in your life is personal growth, or that it creates personal fears.  Get curious and give yourself the love that you give so freely to others.  Be a soothing balm to your soul.

Don’t be beautiful.  They keep saying that beautiful is something a girl needs to be.  But honestly?  Forget that.  Don’t be beautiful.  Be angry, be intelligent, be witty, be klutzy, be interesting, be funny, be adventurous, be crazy, be talented – there are an eternity of things to be other than beautiful.  And what is beauty anyway but a set of letters strung together to make a word?  Be your own definition of amazing, always. That is so much more important than anything beautiful, ever.

  – Nikita Gill

Audrey Hepburn to me is what this quote is talking about.  She grew up in Belgium and was involved in fighting against the Nazi’s.  She was a professional dancer and began acting just to help support her mom.  At the time she wasn’t considered a beauty.  Her body wasn’t the right shape, her eyebrows too bushy.  But she lived her life as she wanted and because she wasn’t afraid to be who she was, she became an icon..  She won a Tony, an Oscar and Grammy and is one of only 12 people to win all three.  She insisted that Hubert  de Givenchy design all of her clothes for the movies she was in.  She later stepped away from Hollywood and concentrated on he work as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF.  I love her quote, “I’m Possible” for impossible as well as several others.  She was an eternity of things, including beautiful and to me a wonderful example of living her life on her own terms.

Step Into The Wild Unknown, Become Who You Are Meant To Be

There is a saying, if you want to change your life, change your thoughts.  Thoughts are like a series of stepping stones across a river.  Some of the stones are slippery from the moss as the water runs over them.  Some of them are unstable and rock as you step on them.  Some of the stones are tilted with edges that cut like a knife and hard to walk across.  Some of the stones are firmly planted like a foundation stone.  We can’t cross the river without stepping on the stones.  We choose the stones to step on.  Each stone we walk across, becomes part of our life’s path.  Some trip us up and we fall into the water.  Some support us, some don’t.  Life demands change, but it always comes back to us choosing.

We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.

  – Max Depree

I am listening to the Lord of The Rings soundtrack as I write this.  The Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books and it really exemplifies change, with the journey of the characters.  Some like Frodo and Samwise were challenged to greatness.  They had failures when it seemed like the evil of the ring would destroy them.  They wanted to give up, because what was asked of them was so hard.  They kept walking towards their destination and that journey forged them, like a hammer hitting them again and again as they walked through the fiery tests. Each challenge brought them closer to the great characters they had the potential to be. 

Inspiration and growth only come from adversity and from challenge – from stepping away from what’s comfortable and familiar and stepping out in the unknown

– Ben Saunders

Boromir failed in his duty.  Gollum swung from bad to good to bad again.  Saurman fell from being a protector of the world to its destroyer.  So many were tested and found wanting, not because it was their destiny to fail, or that they were inherently evil.  It was because they stopped trying to be good and wise.  It was easier to let the bad take over.  Sometimes we think that we have lost of the best part of us, like when Gandalf went down into the fires with the Balrog, and we don’t know how we can continue.  It seems like all is lost.  But like Gandalf coming back as a new being, we can always be reborn.  As long as we keep walking, the way will open before us.  When we push the edges of the known universe, we discover new lands to explore.

I always find beauty in things that are odd and imperfect – they are much more interesting.

  – Marc Jacobs

Have you ever monitored the thoughts that cross your mind?  The things you think, but filter and so don’t say?  An interesting exercise is to sit on a bench at a mall, park or beach – somewhere where there are lots of people.  Turn on the recording button on your phone and just record your thoughts as you watch the people walk by.  When you replay it, notice if the majority of your thoughts were positive or negative.  Where you funny?  Quirky? Profound? Think about your favorite TV shows or movies.  The characters in the book, movie, TV shows that you remember and fall in love with, are the ones that are quirky – Spock or Data from Star Trek, or maybe the science nerd from NCIS Abby or Dr. Mallard.  Punky Brewster with the funny socks.  The characters on The Big Bang Show.  The list goes on and on.  Find the beauty in you being you. 

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

  – George Bernard Shaw

Asking yourself questions about your thoughts can provide useful insight into thoughts that you can work on changing.  Whenever anything went wrong for my mom, she had a habit of saying, “I could just kill myself”.  She didn’t even realize she was saying it until one day my son said to her after something happened, “I know grandma you could just kill yourself”.  She was horrified that she had said this so often that her young grandson said it back to her, and she stopped saying it.

Close some doors.  Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because they no longer lead somewhere.

  – Unknown

As you get curious and not judgmental about the thoughts, dig beneath them to see what patterns are in your life that you didn’t realize were there.  We all have them.  How many times have you been driving to or from work and realized that you are missing moments in your drive – that suddenly you are home or at work and you don’t remember part of the drive?  Shifting the patterns is what makes real transformation of your thoughts.  I have hated spiders since I was a kid and got bit when I was sleeping on my hand.  When I was talking a college creative writing course years ago, they had us read a book by Sue Hubbell.  Her husband and her were both professors at a University and he decided one day to walk away from tenure and go live in the Ozarks.  A few months later, he left Sue also and she wrote about that year in her life where everything fell apart and she was left with no money and no job and a house in the middle of nowhere. 

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

  – Wayne W. Dyer

Each chapter was written around something in nature.  One chapter was about spiders.  When I finished that chapter, my relationship with spiders changed.  While I still don’t “like” them, I am no longer terrified of them.  This chapter for me highlighted the fact that when we learn more about something, it changes our relationship with it.  It takes the fears away, because we removed the unknown from the equation.  When you go beyond what you think is real, you step into the unknown.  While the unknown is filled with fears, each day our relationship with it changes, because more becomes known.  Like walking down a path through the fog – we may not be able to see far into the distance, but each step reveals what was hidden before.  Just keep stepping on the next stone, taking the next step in your life.  Make this quote your mantra, and you will have an amazing life.

Today I create a WONDERFUL NEW DAY and a WONDERFUL NEW FUTURE.

  – Louise Hay

Don’t Be Afraid To Dance Your Own Dance Of Life

In order to save myself, I must destroy first the me I was told to be – The Dreamer

When you were this girls age, you had dreams about who you wanted to be when you grew up.  You may already have been singing, or dancing, or wanting to be a doctor or lawyer.  Between this and that statement they let you know that you should choose a less challenging career than a doctor or lawyer, because you really aren’t that smart.

Or it could be more subtle where you are being directed by your parents into the career that they want for you.  That career your mom or dad wanted; or everyone in your family has this career (our family is all in the legal or medical field); or the one you want won’t be able to support you – all valid reasons by their way of thinking.

Along the way you learn to hide who you are.  You learn that others will judge you or belittle you.  So, you put on masks to conform to what friends and family expect – who they want you to dress like, look like, act like.  You hide your dreams so that no one can destroy them any further.

You learn not to trust your heart to be in others hands.  You give up on what is possible and settle for what is conforming to the needs and desires of others.  You forget who you are and what you are here for.  You no longer take part in the dance of life, but instead settle back against the wall and watch those with more courage or talent dance it in front of you.

Ten years from now, make sure you can say that you chose your life, you didn’t settle for it – Unknown

There is only one way to truly know who you are deep down inside.  You have to get in touch with your own soul.  You need to be by yourself, and sit with yourself, and just listen.

Looking back at your life, find the places where you were really happy.  Find the things that are so easy for you to do, that others find hard or impossible.  Trace back all of the threads that have your name engraved upon them.  Start picking out and removing all of the threads that are not you.  Look for the gold and silver pieces and toss out the dross.

Now look for the patterns that are left.  The amazing thing is that it usually takes you back to this age.  The age when you acted out who you really were, before society broke you like a young colt and told you who to be.  The threads of genius that are all you, can now be taken up and made into whatever pattern you want.  It is never too late to be who you were meant to be.

Sometimes when you make this journey deep into our soul, you discover that your life has to be completely shaken up.

• UPLIFT:  You are covered in dust and debris that needs to be removed.  We need to rearrange almost everything. Uplift what you buried.
• EMPOWER:  Change almost everything.   Empower your heart and soul to lead you in the right direction.
• VALIDATE:  We need to go to the place we are supposed to be.  You need to validate that your dreams are right.  You can be and do what they are leading you to.

A close friend of mine relocated from Los Angeles to Italy and she loves it.  The best thing to do is to remove what doesn’t belong and then figure out how to rearrange what does.  It is an individual journey that defines who you are in a totally new way.  You discover your truth by looking for it down deep within and then integrating it into your life.  You are on a life adventure.  This journey is for you alone.  Embrace it and life it fully.

The spiritual journey is individual, highly personal. It can’t be organized or regulated.  It isn’t true that everyone should follow one path.  Listen to your own truth – Ram Dass

There are some that will say that living your life purpose, is being selfish.  That you are ignoring the wishes of others.  But actually, the reverse is true.

Each one of us was given as part of our life journey a divine destiny.  You were born into the place and the family that would give you the tools to accomplish this purpose.  Some of those life lessons come through adversity, some come as part of the journey of rediscovering who you are really meant to be.

If you don’t take the risks, make the changes and transform your life, then your destiny will not be fulfilled.  And you will not be living the life that God sent you here to live.

So, it is actually selfish to not live up to your full potential.  To not find out who you are supposed to be.  To not utilize your power to its full capability. To not live out loud and up front your God given destiny.