Daring To Be Great

“Nothing can dim the light that shines within”  – Maya Angelou

It takes considerable strength to dare to dream.  To dare to be the one chosen to bring something special and wonderful to the world.  It means that you’ve taken the step of defining who you are at a soul level.  You are daring yourself to live up to that soul destiny.  When you dare to step out on the ledge, you realize that you are making yourself vulnerable.  Those who dare greatly, can fail greatly.  In fact, failures are a given.  You can’t step outside your comfort zone and not have some failures in your life.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”  – Robert Kennedy

When you reach up to touch the sky, you will almost always find that there are those who want to knock you down.  You can’t listen to the bullies of the world.  You can’t let fear run your life. Your assignment, your commitment, your intentions are all too valuable to be derailed by the lies and hatred of those who can’t stand in your light.

“Advice is like snow.  The softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind”  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Some poems have so much learning in them, that it blows your mind.  Some truths are so universal and so grounded in absolute truth, that they define all cultures and times.  I think that the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling is one of those poems.  It was brought to my attention again when I read a blog that I subscribe to.  There is such a depth to it that I am only talking about a small part of it.  The part that relates to the courage you need to rise above all the drama that tries to attach itself, when you are daring greatly.  I will print the entire poem at the end.

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.  Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too”  – Will  Smith

I am only talking about the first stanza because we have seen so many people lately get caught up in violence, both with terrorism and workplace violence.  They fight against those that have different beliefs than themselves, as though having a difference of opinion makes theirs less valid.  They don’t understand that you can hold opposing viewpoints and not have to label one as right and one as wrong.

“You don’t have to disrespect and insult others simply to hold your own ground.  If you do, that shows how shaky your own position is”  – Red Haircrow

True warriors know that they don’t need to resort to fighting to be strong, to dare greatly and face the wind.  They can face the wind because they know what it takes to be different, and still be grounded in a fullness and ease of spirit and grace.  When you face the wind, you lift yourself up above the opinions of others.  You step into a space of knowing that what you are creating, manufacturing and generating is your own successful life.  You are fulfilling your destiny by daring to touch the sky.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain.  It takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving” – Dale Carnegie

One of the hardest things to learn as you mature, is that while people can say or do nasty things to you, you don’t have to get down in the mud with them.  Politicians in general (there are some who don’t feel it is necessary to degenerate their opponents to make a valid point) seem to get into name calling wars.  As an adult you will be disappointed by those who in order to build up their own egos begin tearing down someone else.  Sadly, you will see this kind of behavior not only in politics, but also in your jobs, in your families, and among your friends.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

Bullies and cyberbullies are becoming way too common.  I think that the leaders of all of the countries around the world need to understand, that when they act badly, it sets the tone for others to do so.  I can remember trying so hard to teach my children that people who bully others have a very low opinion of themselves.  They usually are being bullied themselves, or were bullied when they were younger.  They attack without reason, because in their minds they believe that if they hit first and hit hard enough, they are in fact protecting themselves.  They are hurting so badly that they need to hurt others.  I wanted them to be able to understand why someone would be mean, spiteful and say things that they knew were not true.

“Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

How does a person listen to the lies that someone else tells or feel the pain of being hated, and not go down the same road in displaying that behavior back to the person who is hurting them?  Remember the childhood rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?  Or the “I’m rubber your glue, bounces off me and sticks to you?”  You may have tried to pretend as a child that whatever mean hurtful thing was being said, it didn’t effect you.  But it did.  You may have tried walking away, but usually they just followed you. So you became small, withdrawn and tried to take up as little space as possible.  You wrapped yourself up in silence and disappeared.

“Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself” – Tim Fields

How do you go from that child who tried to disappear, to the adult who steps out on the ledge and says, “Look at me – I am daring to stand up and touch the sky, to make a difference in the world.”  You could kill them with kindness.  Or deflect it saying that their energy or vibration was way below yours.  Or you could pretend that all their negative remarks did not even phase you, hoping eventually it would be true.

It isn’t just about surviving something.  Because if you are only surviving then you are still being a victim of the bullying, even if it happened years ago.  It is about forgiving and letting it go.  It is about having being free of the drama and leaving it behind you.  It is about living a thriving lifestyle.

If it is still happening in your life now, then think about this – what in your case is “the ball”, and how can you take it and “go home”?

“The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home.  First time, every time.  When there’s no ball, there’s no game.  Bullies hate that.  So they’ll either behave so they can play with you, or they’ll go bully someone else”  – Seth Godin

Put another way, don’t add fuel to the fire.  Without your fuel, the fire will go out.  How do you get into this frame of mind?  How do you not feel that you have defend yourself, defend your reputation, defend that your rights?  You stay in your own lane.  You keep dancing to your own rhythm.  Yes, it might be that some people who don’t know you well enough will listen to what the bully is saying and repeat it.  What is done in the dark will come to light.  Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.  Eventually if you stay in your lane, and keep your own internal rhythm strong, people will recognize who is living the good life, and who is the one trying to tear others lives apart.

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

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Everything In Life Is About Balance

One of the most common complaints is not enough time.  There isn’t enough time to get everything done.  When you have the demands of a career, a family, volunteering for your favorite charity, a spiritual life, trying to fit in physical fitness, etc. . . .  how can you fit all of that into one 24 hr time period, or even spread it out through your week?  How do you balance the hours in the day with everything that needs to be done?

The most common answer is something called “time management”.  I have read many books, heard speakers talk about it, but I have never been able to manage time.  The best I can do is keep that running list that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

“You can do anything, but not everything.”  – David Allen

What if it isn’t time management that brings a semblance of balance into a person’s life?  What if it is boundary management?

How many times have you said yes to your friend when she asked you to watch her kids, when you didn’t have the time to do it or even want to do it?  How many times do you have priorities screaming at home you want to get done, but you let your girlfriend talk you into going out on the town?  Not only did you burn up hours that you wanted to do something different with, now your budget is out of whack $100.00, and you didn’t even have “that” good of a time.

You could write a book of similar things that happen with work, such as having to work on Saturday because someone else in your department didn’t get their job done on time.

Or your child’s school talked you into committing to baking 12 dozen cookies for the bake sale.  You want to just drive by the grocery story and buy cookies from the bakery, but every other mom is baking and so you feel that you have to too.

All of these are not time management issues.  They are boundary issues.  You don’t know how to say no in such a way that they know you mean it.  How do you say no in such a way that they know you still love them, but “no I can’t commit to that.”

“Life is about balance; too much and too little can kill.  The best way to balance life is setting your boundaries and learning to say enough”  – M G Garcia

When you don’t stand up for the life that you want, then you end up living the life that everyone else pulls you into.  Boundaries keep your life on track and within the path that you have chosen to walk.

There are a lot of trainings and seminars that sound fun to me.  A lot of books that look like a great summer read.  A lot of TV series that look like they would be fun to watch (everyone at work is talking about them).

But I have boundaries in my life where I self-limit the number of hours I spend on things that are not furthering the dreams in my life.  I still enjoy TV and read great books, but I limit the number of hours that they suck up, because I could read book after book after book if I let myself.  The dishes would sit in the sink, the laundry would pile up and I would get around to a lot of chores as soon as I finish the next chapter – LOL.

So boundaries are both between me and the world, and between me and my dreams.  I don’t have perfect balance.  I binge on books or TV every once in awhile.  But I am constantly asking myself, “does this help me grow and expand LemonadeMakers in some way?”

When I do the occasional binge, it is because I have been working way too hard, and my brain needs a break.  I just don’t let my brain stay on a permanent vacation.  I love doing the research, finding the quotes and photos and writing these posts.  I love the comments people make and interacting with the community.  I am constantly learning new things so that I can bring them to my community and engage them in even more meaningful ways.

“Try to always live a balanced life.  Don’t deprive yourself, but don’t overindulge; don’t be lazy, but learn that it’s ok to relax; challenge yourself, but don’t be afraid to silly and let loose”  –  Alex and Ani

In addition to boundaries, balance is also about letting things go in your life.  Understanding the deeper concept of what letting go or giving up actually mean.  What is the difference between them?  How do we know when we should keep trying, and when we just need to stop?

I always think of the hospital shows on TV.  You see the doctor giving a patient who is having a heart attack CPR.  5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes?  How many times do you shock the heart to restart it?  There comes that moment when everyone else in the room has stepped back.  You can see they want to say, stop, this isn’t working.  But they are afraid to say it.  Then finally someone says, “you have to call the time of death”.  No matter how many times you try, that heart isn’t going to start beating again.

So how do you know if it is too soon or too late?  When do you let go?

When do you say goodbye to a job?  To a relationship?  To a dream?  To a belief?  When should you be holding on, and when should you be letting them go?

Balance is usually achieved by living between the two extremes.  Not letting go of things just because it is too hard; and knowing when to let go of things that no longer serve you.  Letting go of things that are actually beginning to harm you, because of your refusal to let go.

“Balance is not something you find.  It’s something your create”  – Unknown

You need to relook at what is happening with the thing you are trying to hold on to or let go of.

• Why are you being called to either hold onto it or release it?
• Is it tied to a fear?
• Is it too hard to accomplish?
• Is it unhealthy?
• Have you outgrown it?
• Have you just not grown into it yet?
• Does it still reflect who you are growing into being?

I always think of children when explaining this concept.  My son had a pair of rain boots that he loved.  He was around 3 years old at the time.  They were like fireman boots, all black, with a red circle around the top of the boots, and went up to his knees.  I noticed one day that he was squishing his toes to fit into the boots.  So I put them away in the top shelf of the hallway closet to save for his baby brother to wear when he was older.  Every time I turned around he had found those boots and put them on.  It didn’t matter where I hid them.  I finally had to give them away.

This same son, fast forward to high school age.  He enrolled in a drafting class because he was interested in drawing.  About six weeks into the class, he came home wanting to quit the class.  He said it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be.  He wanted to take a German language class instead.  I said he should stay in the drafting class and finish it.  My husband thought he should be allowed to quit it.

So he transfers into the German language class.  About six weeks later we were having the same conversation about the German class.  I told my husband that he needed to learn to finish what he starts.  Whatever reason he come up with for quitting, it wasn’t the real reason he wanted to quit.  The real reason he wanted to quit, was because the class just hit a hard spot.

When life hits a hard spot in a job, or a relationship or a dream – you might think it is time to quit.

• You might think that the fact that you are having problems means it just won’t work out the way you wanted.
• You might think that the hard spot is proof that you were wrong about that dream being your destiny.
• You might think that God is telling you to turn and go back to what you had before.
• You might think that you are being called to a different dream.
• You might think you should close the door on this one as being the wrong one.

The only way to know that you should keep trying or quit, is to ask yourself the hard questions around why you are doing so.  You need to look at your past and see what kinds of patterns you have in regards to trying harder or quitting.  You just need to keep growing into the best version of yourself.

Keep expanding your comfort zone.  Wake up and be conscious enough to understand when the subconscious is leading you astray.  To balance that understanding of when the subconscious is being tricky and telling you to walk away from something that you just had a setback with.

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

Remember LemonadeMakers is here to help you dig deep into these kinds of questions, to bring clarity and purpose to the forefront in your life. 🙂

Only Those Who Can See The Invisible Can Do The Impossible

You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.

  – Abraham Maslow

On “America’s Got Talent”, Mandy Harvey sang an amazing song.  She got the gold buzzer.  What she demonstrated through her song and her story is resilience.  When she was 18 years old, she lost her hearing from a disease.  She had been singing since she was four years old.  When she lost her hearing, she did what most of us would do and put away her dream as something that would never be able to happen for her.  She stopped singing.

Yes, sometimes the odds are really stacked against you, but no that doesn’t mean you’ll fail.  The odds of you even being conceived are so close to nothing that no one in their right mind would bet on your being here.  But you are.  You’ve already proved you can beat the odds.  So, do it again.

  – Doe Zantamata

Now here she was on stage to sing.  What had happened?  Why did she decide to try again to be a singer?  The song she sang is one that she wrote.  In the song she says that she got tired of not living the life she wanted to live.  That she was tired of saying no to her dream.  That even though the sky was more gray than blue for her, she was going to try and take her place again.  To try and live the life she still felt that she was destined to live.

Wanting something is not enough.  You must hunger for it.  Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.

  – Les Brown

She got the gold buzzer because of the combination of her beautiful voice, her heartfelt song of struggle, and her determination to overcome her perceived limitations caused by her deafness.  She was so hungry that she refused to let her dreams be defeated.  What Mandy teaches us is so vital.  She had the worlds best excuse not to go after her dreams.  She can’t hear her own voice.  She can’t hear her music.  But instead of stopping her forever, she took some time to heal through what had happened and then she did a very important thing.  She got curious.

A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.

  – unknown

She got curious about what did she have that she could use.  Standing in her stocking feet, she can feel the music through the floor.  She then found that she could trust her voice to be on pitch.  She trusted her musicians and translator to let her know how the music sounded, how her voice sounded.  She found she could trust her body and voice to support her in her singing.  Her past of losing her hearing did not mean the end of her life.  It meant learning to live her live in a new way, so that she could still follow her dreams.

Anyone can hide; it’s the easiest thing to do.  Standing up, facing the truth, and working through problems, that’s what makes you strong.

  – unknown

We all have things in our life that create challenges and obstacles.  Some of them are life altering and may seem to close the door to our dreams.  We may sit in the dark and bewail what has happened to us.  We may have to go through the stages of grief, from anger, betrayal, denial, sorrow and so on.  But each day we face a new choice.  We can process through those negative emotions and rebuild our life, or stay in the dark ashes of what we thought life was going to be.

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal.  You do not change your decision to get there.

  – Zig Ziglar

Like Mandy, we each of us have something inside of us that is greater than any lemon that life can throw at us.  Sometimes when we are deep within the struggle of survival we can’t see it.  But it is there, patiently waiting for us to get off the floor and back onto our life path.  It helps when we can recall other times in our life when we got knocked down.  The times when we faced the battle against our negative mind talk.  Against the “not good enough” talk.  Against the friends and family who told us to give up, that what we wanted was not possible.  Against those who wanted to protect us from ourselves, from disappointment and failure.  Remember the fears that you faced down.  Remember how you discovered that those fears were all an illusion.

Being a Human Being is all about experiencing all of the wonders of the world.

  – unknown

What if . . .  the things that we go through, are ours to go through so that we can both experience the wonders of the world and appreciate them?  None of us know what we are truly capable of.  If we are just handed all of our desires and dreams, would we see them for what they truly are?  Would we grow and expand in our lives?  I don’t think that any of us would ever believe what it is possible for us to accomplish. 

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

  – Dale Carnegie

If we could sneak a peak at the end of the chapter that we are currently living, we probably wouldn’t accept the truth of what we read.  In the “Wizard of Oz”, Glinda the good witch tells Dorothy – “You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”.  The same is true for us.  We’ve always had the power to live the life that we dream of.  The path to that destination is how we learn to accept it, use it, grow it, and live our life into it.  We are all capable of far more than we know.  We just need to click those ruby red shoes and say it until we believe it. Then pull up the big girl panties and get it done.  No excuses.

If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.

  – Win Borden

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Relax Into Surrender And Receive What Is Promised

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself which is now and always now?  Surrender to what is.  Say “yes” to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you”  – Eckhart Tolle

When you are in resistance to something you expend a lot of energy trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.

Imagine that you are holding a rubber band as far as it can be stretched.  At some point one of two things are going to happen.  The band will experience fatigue, break and snap your hands painfully, or you will let it go, releasing the tension.

If you find yourself exhausted every single day, you might want to check to see what you are creating resistance to.

What inner conflict and struggle is going on in your life?  What rigid habits or mind sets do you have which are in conflict with your journey?

Relax and tune into your inner guidance.  Follow where your intuition leads.  Then gently let go of what is creating this tension, the thing that is no longer serving you.  Experience the joy of renewed energy when you are in the flow of your life path.

Part of the process of learning to surrender to what is, is the process of learning to love who you are in this moment.  Accepting yourself with all of your imperfections actually empowers you to grow into your potential.

It is kind of opposite of what you may think.  You put yourself down thinking that condemning parts of yourself, is the way to change those parts of you that aren’t perfect.

Think of a metal spring.  Hold it between two of your fingers, pressing your fingers together so that it is totally compacted.  No space left.  This is how you treat yourself.  Like the expression, “too tightly wound”.  You compress your feelings, your desires.  You hold fingers tightly thinking that it puts you in control.  That you can force yourself to hide the parts you don’t want others to see.

“The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender”  – William Booth

But at some point, your fingers are going to get tired.  When that happens you are going to let go of that spring.  Then that spring is going to bounce all over the room.

When that happens, you create a pattern of self-sabotage in your life.  Your life turns into a Greek tragedy. You implode and whatever you were trying to hide, will expose itself in a big way.

But what if instead of trying to hold tightly to the spring, you released the tension just a little bit?  Then a little bit more and more, until there is no tension left.  You find the spring just stands there, perfectly balanced.

By surrendering to who you really are, you empower yourself to become better.  Instead of being your enemy, it becomes your teacher.  You learn to work with it, instead of fighting against it.

“Surrender requires courage.  In meditation, you confront yourself with your problems again and again until you finally understand the absolute need to let go.  Otherwise, you will continue to emphasize the lack of acceptance, regrets, pain . . .   But  when acceptance comes, I can see smiles on your faces”  – Sahajananda

You can’t control other people’s actions or reactions.  You can’t really control your own.  You can learn to let go.

To be like water.  To flow through, under, over, around the obstacles in your life.

Trying to push the boulder uphill just uses up your energy and leaves you tired, angry and frustrated.  Going around the boulder and continuing down your path is much easier.  Don’t try to drag the boulder back down the hill with you.

Leave it alone.  When you surrender, you also release.  It is a do or don’t do thing.  You either surrender or you don’t.  There is no part way to surrender process.  Find the blocks and release them completely.  Or don’t.

It takes a great level of self-love and determination to live your life this way.  But it is the way to growth and change.  To be able to live life as the greatest version of your true self.

True surrender is not giving up or giving in.  It has nothing to do with failure.  It is not being defeated by something greater than you are.

It doesn’t mean that you become welcome mats and let everyone wipe their feet on you.

It is simply and profoundly going with the flow of life. 

Most of the rules you put into your life were built on the concept of fear.  Fear of being hurt, so you closed up.  Fear of being wrong, so you shut up.  Fear of being exposed or humiliated, so you became invisible.

Surrender is about being vulnerable to all of those fears.  To realizing that you are much stronger than you think you are.  That if the worst happens, you can live and grow through that experience in a new way.  You can transform through any experience to come out the other side, stronger and more beautiful than you were.

“The inspiration you seek is already within you.  Be silent and listen”  – Rumi

It is about accepting what is, not what you were in expectation of.  It is about letting go of the should’s and could’s, and accepting what is.  It is silencing the mind and listening to your heart and souls voice.

Go from being a “human doing” to a “human being”.  The mind is all about doing.  The heart and soul connection is all about being who you are at the center of your being.

Believe in your potential, have faith in what will be.  Like the caterpillar, have faith that when you emerge from the chrysalis an even better life will begin.

Life’s Adventures Unlock The Mystery of Who You Are, Start Now

“If happiness is the goal, and it should be, then adventures should be a priority” – Richard Branson

Why should adventures be a priority?  Because it is the best way to learn about yourself and the world.  You learn about what you are afraid of, what challenges you.  What deep seated beliefs you have that you might not be aware of.  It is in fact the best way to experience “LIFE”.  You go somewhere you have never been.

It could be a walk in the woods around where you live.  A hike in the mountains.  A walk along the sea shore, listening to the sea birds call out over the sounds of the waves crashing against the sandy beach.  It could be your first time in an airplane or a cruise ship.  Sitting in a train, you watch the majesty of nature roll by as you cross the rocky mountains, and someplace deep inside you feel the shift.

Somewhere along the line, something will happen out of the ordinary.  You will start out on a certain kind of journey, and along the way the mystery of why you chose that path will reveal itself to you.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”  – Winnie The Pooh

What is so interesting about travel and adventure is the attitude you bring to it.  You can magnify every discomfort into an ordeal, or you can get curious about what is happening around you.  You can experience it all as an adventure.  You get out of the ruts in your life.  Adventures are the best way to let some stories happen to you.  Discover new trails you didn’t know existed.  Adventures answer questions you didn’t know you had, because with adventures you gain first hand knowledge and experience.

“The books we read answer questions we didn’t even know existed”  – Axel Marazzi

There might be switch backs along the trail and you decide to walk off the trail, and cut through straight up the mountainside.  You come to forks in the trail with no signs, so you have to choose to go this way or that way.  Sometimes the trees are so thick you can’t see the sun.

• It is in the getting lost, that you become aware of what is important.  What are you willing to do to get it?
• It is in the replacing of fear with curiosity that you truly see what your options are.
• It is in seeing the endless stream of possibilities are always there for you to see, but you get so single mindedly focused that you miss every door of opportunity.

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

Are you a planner?  I like to get into the details and have things laid out.  It took a lot of practice for me to start leaving space in my plans to just be adventurous.  My husband loves to just get in the car and take a drive.  No real destination, just drive down a road we have never taken, with no idea where it would take us.  Everyone needs someone like my husband, who grabs your arm and says lets go have an adventure.

“Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your live was meant to be”  – Steve Pavlina

Not planning gives me anxiety.  It feels unstable.  But slowly through years of practice, I allow for spontaneity in my life.  Is it easy for you to follow maps to the edges, and then step off the edge?  You know that the world isn’t flat.  You know there are no monsters of the deep to drag your boat down to the bottom of the ocean.

• Do you go to sleep with stars that you don’t recognize?
• How often do you order something you have never eaten before?
• Do you have the conviction, that whatever you are looking for in life, it is out there waiting for you to find it?

There is no end to what you can discover about yourself when you adventure out with your eyes wide open.  Let the journey unfold itself before you.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us”  – Charles Bukowski

A lifetime of adventures

One of my favorite movies is with Diane Lane, in “Under The Tuscan Sun”.  After a bad a breakup, she is gifted with a vacation in Italy by her best friend.  While on the tour bus, they pass by this house and all of a sudden she makes them stop and let her off.  And that is when her adventure really begins.  She ends up buying the house, restoring it, and meets all of these new people.  She has this idea of what she wants in her life to make her happy – her dream life.  At the end of the movie she has everything she wanted, but it all came to her in a totally different way than she planned.

When you try to make life conform to a plan, you miss the mystery and magic of what it is really supposed to be.  The best gift you can give yourself is a lifetime of adventures.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius

There is a wonderful book by Jack Canfield called “The Golden Motorcycle Club” and in it he writes that we travel in soul groups.  I can just see the ad for my soul group.

“Limitless soul seeking like minded limitless souls, to journey down to earth for a great adventure.  You will be leaving a good life here, to go for a greater experience of life there.  For in going out into the world of the physical body, you will succeed in discovering that you are far more than you ever dreamed of.  You will find that stories are not just something that you can read about.  Stories are what happens to you and for you when you live a life of adventure.  You will discover if you are, “the girl made up of adventure and wine and all things fine”, or “the girl made up of adventure, fine beer, brains and no fear”.

And so . . . the ADVENTURE BEGINS.  Let’s go do something remarkable.

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

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

  – R. Buckminster Fuller

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

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

 – unknown

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

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

  – Beau Taplin

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

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

  – Dean Koontz

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

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

  – Swani Sivananda

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

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

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

  – Andy Andrews

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

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

  – Shawn Achor

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

Don’t quit before the miracle happens.

 – unknown

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

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

  – Arthur C. Clarke

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

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

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

  – Charles Dickens

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Your Soul Is Your Greatest Teacher

 

“You have to grow from the inside out.  None can teach you; none can make you spiritual.  There is no other teacher but your own soul”  – Swami Vivekananda

Your soul comes with your purpose already planted within it.  Your gifts are inside, waiting to be discovered.  The divine will is waiting to be expressed through your life.

Unfortunately, you forget what you already knew as a small child.  You get lost.  This is where the divine teachings can assist you.

The universal laws point you in the right direction.  They lead you to re-discover what you have forgotten.

One of the Laws of the Universe.  But what does it really mean when you look at it through the lens of your life?

I love the vibrant health of this tree in our featured quote. It is not only fully supporting itself, it is also providing for the area around it. Everything is vibrant, growing and healthy.

You have the light of the truth being reflected in the lamps to light the darkness down in the root system.  They shine at night to show the way as you go seeking the truth among your deep roots. You have the butterfly of transformation.

You have the fruit of both the foliage around it and the tree itself. This fruit attracts you as you go seeking food for your soul. It is so beautiful, and it invites you to come and rest.

I was listening to a CD by Guy Finley and he talked about the importance of balance in how we show up in the world, comparing it to a tree. Picture the tree having a root system as you see above. This root system is as deep underground, as the trunk and branches of the tree that extend high above the ground. It is about balance of the structure of the tree. The balance of the trees roots below support the outward growth above.

He stated that if a tree that didn’t have strong deep roots (roots deep within), it would be in danger of toppling over. This was because the growth above ground wasn’t being fully supported. In turn, if all you did was work on the root system, then you would have stunted growth above, no fruits. There has to be a balance of inner and outer work, all happening at the same time.

We see this in the Ying/Yang symbols.  In giving, you are going up the outward growth of the tree and in receiving you are going down into the root system.  In breathing in, you are going to the root system, and in breathing out you are going up the growth of the tree.

“The constant in/out, give/receive plays out in so many systems in our lives”

I thought about this in my own life, and watching the lives of others that I see out in the world. We have all seen a number of people who achieved something great in their lives, who later implode through drugs, drinking or sexual escapades. Think of the Hollywood stars that have overdosed, the politicians and scandals that they have had. Even religious leaders have their fair share when they have built an empire that came crashing down on them.

These are all examples of a root system that couldn’t support the upward growth.

So what is the root system in our analogy?

It is the inner work that you  do on yourself. The roots remind you of where you have been, and who you are today. It takes work to get to know your shadows. To uncovering what I call the popsicle stories. The stories you created as a child, to explain something that you couldn’t understand at the time. It is the judgments, traumas and dramas you grew up with. It takes deep inner work to discover what they are, and how they play out in the patterns of your life.  You must go back and claim your past.  It is what helps you to understand your present.

“It is in the connecting the past to the present, that sets up what you can completely shift and change for a better future”

It is through the developing of your relationship with the divine, that you are able to align your souls purpose in being here now. It is about asking the right questions to yourself that you discover “your way home” to your true self and your purpose in being here.

It is exploring and questioning every truth you have acquired throughout your life.  Some of those earliest truths contradict to some of your latest truths.  Some of those older “truths” or stories need to be released.  They no longer serve or support your inward and outward growth.

You need to discover that, as in the Wizard of Oz, you already have what you are looking for outside of you.  It lives deep inside of you in the root system. You already know “the way to home”.

Home is the place of balance in this analogy. The bedrock of the foundation cornerstone. The place where the outward growth of “who you are in this world” is equal to, and growing in proportion to the inner growth of the root system of your tree.  It is the place of awakening.

You have filters in your mind, which serve as a protection.  These filters both serve you and sometimes hurt you.  This is because you miss seeing things that have always been there.

Have you ever driven down a road that you use all the time and see a store front for the first time?  Earlier this year a large commercial building was totally removed so they could build a new structure.  I drive by it 4 times a day, going back and forth to my office from home (I go home for lunch).  I didn’t notice the building was being torn down until they had completely removed all trace of it.

This is because my filter removed it from my field of vision.  This has happened to you too.  The more conscious and awake you become the more you can learn to remove the filters so that you can see those open doors of opportunity.

Several years ago, after the murder of my nephew and the collapse of my sisters nonprofit that she had created afterwards, I discovered my souls purpose with LemonadeMakers.

LemonadeMakers after several years of inner growth preparation it is starting to grow above the ground. The trunk and branches have been growing, and we are about to have a whole lot of pieces of what I have been working on finally come together.

Supporting LemonadeMakers has changed me in ways that I can’t even believe myself. I have grown and changed so much personally. I have seen just how important it is to invest in yourself, and have a personal coach. The time, effort, and money spent means that I have taken the zip line through the jungle, instead of traveling on foot and breaking the trail.

Without coaching I know that I would have probably given up. The hero’s journey with this business has suffered setbacks with our website when I spent a lot of money and the service provider went out of business.  Then with the financial freefall of 2007-2012 recovery when I suffered a large loss of income.  With the support of good friends, the support of great coaches, and my own blood, sweat and tears, whatever roadblock that appears, I manage to keep going and keep growing.

From the place of my own experience in transformational growth, I encourage you to seek out personal coaching in some way. It is hard to see what is happening deep within the root system below you, or high up at the tips of your branches. A good coach, friend or mentor is a mirror reflecting back to you what you can’t see. We all need that friend that removes the toilet paper trailing behind you when you walk out of the bathroom, or smooths out the wild hair in the back of your head.

Just remember that every second is a fresh start to begin nurturing the roots and the branches of your tree. Every day is what you chose to make of it, how you are living your dream out in the world. When you have unrestricted flow between the roots and branches of your tree, you will see the greatest harmony flow into your life.  You will think of something, and make the connection, and produce the result almost without effort.

Ask

Believe

Receive

Contact LemonadeMakers if you want to see if having a personal coach is your next step.

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

 

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

 – Rumi

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

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

 – Shannon L. Alder

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

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

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

Always choose the path the feeds the soul

 – Confucius

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

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

 – Rumi

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

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

  – Sandra Kring

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

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

 – Steve Maraboli

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

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

  – Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

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

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There are no endings. Just New Beginnings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Or you could fly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

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

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

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

The story of the Starfish –

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

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

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

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

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

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

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

 – African Proverb

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

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

 – Theodore Roosevelt

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

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

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

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

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

Unknown

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

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

How big is your purpose?

 

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

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

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

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

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

A person can say what they believe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your purpose is as simple as loving others,

and

as complicated as how do you reach out without fear

and

bring that love into reality?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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