Listen To The Heart

What’s life without a little risk?

 – J.K. Rowling

Life is about taking risks.  Every choice is in reality a risk.  A risk of achieving something great and wonderful; a risk of failure; a risk of not doing or doing the right thing.  The great secret of the phrase, “taking a risk”, is that no matter what happens, we get something wonderful.  If we take a risk and it turns out just like we wanted, we are happy.  If we take a risk, and it doesn’t turn out well, we still have something wonderful from the experience, we have knowledge, experience, and the combination of those two things is wisdom.  We can then look at what we tried to do, remove a piece, tinker with it, add something new and try again.  The only way to truly fail, is to do nothing, to risk nothing.

And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.

 – Randy Komisar

Being wise beyond our fears, means recognizing that the true directions of the heart, require no words. There is simply a knowing inside. It just feels better, when we go in the direction of the heart. When you make the decision based on the hearts guidance, you feel the weight of the decision slide off your shoulders. There is no second guessing.

To live your greatest life, you must first become a leader within yourself.  Take charge of your life.  Begin attracting and manifesting all that you desire in life.

  – Sonia Ricotti

When you say the words out loud, that only your soul has dared to whisper to the heart, that is when miracles happen. The declaration, both verbal and written gives notice to the divine that you are listening. Listen to your dreams. That is when you open to the unexpected, and miracles happen.  When your mind and heart is too filled with the worlds noise, your dreams may be the only way that your souls whisper can be heard by the heart.

Let your heart be your guide on all things, but you have to listen closely because it speaks so softly.

 – John St. Augustine

Each whisper of the soul to your heart speaks of the next leg of your journey. There are times on your journey when experience and reason tell you not to follow that path. Your mind sees the risks and wants to play it safe. But you have to give it a try.  I’ve always loved the play on words – when you find yourself “now here” instead of “no where” is that moment of just being.  That moment of space of being fully conscious, because you have to be fully conscious to hear the whispers of your heart.

Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.

  – Unknown

When you don’t listen to the whispers of the soul to your heart, sooner or later, that whisper turns into a scream. When the whisper has turned to screaming in desperation, it is usually a sign that your life is about to shift into some sort of test. This comes about because instead of listening to your own heart, you are playing it safe.  Playing it safe, is being a diamond in the ruff.  A raw diamond looks a lot like common quartz, it is cloudy looking..  But cut it perfectly and shine it up, and everyone knows it is a diamond. We all have these exceptional qualities and potential.  But we are afraid to stand out from the crowd, and so we hide ourselves, even from ourselves.  Everybody wants to be a diamond, but very few are willing to get cut.

Take risks in your life.  If you win, you can lead.  If you lose, you can guide.

 – Swami Vivekananda

It is so easy to become focused on others instead of ourselves. We get pushed and pulled in all directions by our work, our friends and our families. When those that we are surrounded by see us listening to our heart, they get scared. Changes that you make in your life, will impact theirs. They are afraid of many things, but primarily that you may out grown them. That you will leave them behind.

The only difference between fear and excitement is your attitude about it.

  – Unknown

Don’t let their fears break your soul. They may try to expose your shadows, your imperfections, the things that lurk inside of you with feelings of shame or guilt.  They are just trying to stop you from listening to the heart. God has put into our hearts, an intuitive guidance system to guide us to what we need, the next step on our path. Follow that guidance. When you do, you will know it because your heart will be at peace. Even the most painful and difficult decisions are correct, if the heart is at peace with it.

Take charge of your choices.  Choose to look up, when life presses you down.  Choose to smile, when life frowns at you.  Choose victory, over defeat.

  – Unknown

Be wise beyond your fears ,and keep heading towards your glorious destiny.  If the dream keeps reappearing in your thoughts, go for it.  That is destiny calling you and it is always worth the price of admission.

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Strong Women Value Themselves and Each Other

The devil whispered in my ear, “you’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.”  Today I whispered in the devil’s ear, “I am the storm”.

  – Unknown

We are all stronger than we know or think we are.  I come from a long line of strong pioneer women.  My great, great grandmother came across the Oregon Trail as a young girl.  The wagon train that her adopted family was part of was attacked by Indians.  She was adopted by the tribe and given to an Indian brave that she had two girls with.  One day a French Canadian trapper saw her and offered to take her back to the white people.  My great grandmother was hidden in an oak barrel for two days scared that if she made a sound she would be killed.  When she reached Oregon and the white people my great grandmother suffered the prejudice of being a half breed.  Her mothers tale was one of rescue, her tale was something else.

In my own life, my parents were divorced when I was four because my mother had an affair and became pregnant with another married mans child.  She moved us around a lot and it wasn’t until I was in high school that I went to the same school the entire grade.  She was married five times and had numerous other relationships looking for something outside of herself, to fill the hole within.  At one point when I was thirteen years old we were homeless because we had no where to go when her current relationship failed.  That was when I knew that my life would be different.  She taught me that you couldn’t find anything outside of yourself to fill the need you had inside.  It had to come from within.  Even though she made a lot of bad decisions, she was the strongest woman I have ever known.  I come from a long line of strong women.  This is what they taught me:

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

  – Nora Ephron

Strong women know that sometimes we just need to sit with the questions until a direction is clearly revealed.

Strong women can sit with another woman in the silence without needing to say anything to break the tension.

Strong women know that when another woman is venting she doesn’t want anything to be fixed, she just needs someone there to witness the removal of the splinter that is causing her pain.

Strong women know that they must make their own light. And if as it sometimes happens that their light goes out, another sister will be there to share hers, until we are strong enough to relight our own.

Strong women know that when the light goes out, we are facing the day, when we question everything. When something so tragic happens that all of our foundations crash into dust.

This is the day when we all circle around our sister as she faces her crisis of faith and reveals the doubts which will birth a new creation. This is the day when we nurture her. When each sister holds the soul of the other ,and whispers the words of transformation.

This is the day of transformation which strips away the old way of being. Rising like a phoenix from the fire, we are reborn, fully transformed. 

No longer trying to be what others want us to be, we accept “us” without reservations or restrictions.

Strong women know that when you stand strong for yourself, you are standing strong for all of us.  When this belief is fully understood and lived, incredible things happen.

We value who we are, no matter what anyone else thinks. 
We forgive ourselves completely. 
We trust ourselves wholeheartedly. 
We are brave enough to love ourselves just as we are, perfectly imperfect. 
We empower ourselves to fully embrace our intuition.
We begin to live our life being the wonderful creation we are.

We fully realize the power of being a goddess, and that nothing can hurt us or stop us, except us.

A strong women doesn’t hold back either the laughter or the tears, because both cleanse the soul.

A strong women doesn’t apologize for knowing how to be both soft and powerful.

A strong women in her essence, her entelechy, is a gift to herself, to her tribe, and to the world.

I choose to be kind because it makes me happy.  But I will defend my boundaries and my loved ones without hesitation.  Make no mistake:  I am fierce.

  – Nanea Hoffman

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

Things do not change.  We Change

 – Henry David Thoreau

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

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

 – Jason Mraz

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

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

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

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

  – William C. Hannan

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

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

  – Jodie Gale

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

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

  – John Mark Green

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

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

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

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

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

  – Mama Indigo

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

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

 – Dr. Steve Maraboli

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

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Listen To Your Heart, Hear The Music Of Your Soul

“Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to the heart, it knows” – Native American Proverb

The visual here is of listening to nature. The wind, the silence of the deep night, that is the time our heart speaks. The mind quiets in expectation of what might happen. It waits in silence to see what the soul wants to be expressed. Then it becomes busy with plans and ideas and arguments for and against every thought.

“It’s the heart that knows the path, the mind is just there to organize the steps”– Jeff Brown

Your heart knows things that your mind can’t explain. When you drop down into your heart to listen, it is like listening to God, as he answers our prayers. There is a peace to it that is hard to explain. There are what I term “Kairos” moments, where the connection to mind, body and soul are wide open. Into the depths of the open space time stands still. There is an awakening, a sigh, a moment of seeing something out of the corner of the eye. In the space between the inhale and exhale of breath God speaks to us.

Like the stillness of a lake, where not even the breath of wind disturbs the surface. Then there is a single rain drop that hits the center of the lake, and the ripple slowly spreads out to lap at the shoreline. Then another drop, and another drop, a downpour begins. The ripples expand out and over each other. The surface of the water is in chaos. Each ripple ends at a different part of the shore, spreading out the details and nuances of the message. And suddenly our soul knows the answer that we have been seeking. All of this happening between the inhale and the exhale.

“Open your heart to hear the sweet, pure, positive and loving messages of your soul” – Sue Krebs 

You will need some time to take in all of the messages received. Time to process, to both reason and accept without reasoning. When the mind, body and soul are all on a wide open connection, it can seem overpowering. But like the music of the orchestra, if you just slow down your life for a moment, you can hear each instrument as it enters and leaves the music being played.

Disconnect from the electronics for a space of time; no T.V. no radio, no IPhone, no internet. Just sit in contemplation, remembering the messages, the conversation. Just sit, listen and accept. Know that what journey your soul is telling you to take, it is the perfection of divine timing to begin it now.

“Be bold enough to use your voice, brave enough to listen to your heart and strong enough to live the life you’ve always imagined” – Unknown

Your mind will bring in the chaos of the world . Churning your mind into a tornado, it can tear huge holes in your inner peace. It can bring up every mistake, every omission, every single thing that can be viewed as failure to tell you not to take this journey. Not to step upon that particular path. It whips you and beats you with dark images until guilt pours over your heart, drowning it in sorrow that you are unworthy, incapable of going on this journey. It creates confusion and makes you feel lost from your purpose. That you didn’t really understand the message correctly.

“Talk to yourself in two languages – what do I fear and what do I love – in order to balance the body and the soul” – Peter Shepherd

That is when it is vital to listen to your heart and soul. Your heart and soul does not lie about who you are, and why you are here. Listening to your heart you will uncover a wild uncharted world. You will learn what is meant for you, not what others want for you.

When you follow the directions of the cars guidance system, you are listening to someone else tell you how to travel on your life’s journey. You will travel to your destination the fastest route, but are those directions the right way to your destination? You won’t pull off the freeway and travel the backroads. You won’t stop at interesting small towns and walk through shops and find treasures. You won’t meet that interesting older couple in a diner that talk about what it was like when they were young. You will miss out on the life you are supposed to be living.

It takes boldness and courage to listen, because if you are truly open hearted and honest, there are shadows within all of us. This is when you have to be bold in using your voice. You have to be brave enough to stand up, even as you acknowledge that you are not infallible. At your hearts core is a strength that will help you stay in the fight of living the life you have always imagined you could have. It is easy to plan out this kind of life, but life has a way of bypassing your plans and going off in its own directions.

When nothing is making sense in your life, that is when you have to fall in love with every detail of what is happening. When you have to remember, that life is happening for you, not to you. It really comes down to attitude and perspective in the end.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of the thing not meant for you” – Unknown

“People will want you to behave in a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world.  But you have to do what’s right for you” – Unknown

As always, if you can’t figure out the questions to ask yourself, if self discovery is a puzzle you’ve yet to solve – contact us.  We are here for you.

Difficult Roads Lead to Beautiful Destinations

 The Spiritual Journey is the unlearning of fear and the acceptance of Love

  – Marianne Williamson

Taking action with the collaboration of your life purpose and your personal genius together, is part of being able to listen to your souls voice.  This unique collaboration forms your souls fingerprint.  When you can see yourself from the souls perspective, you remember what your life’s purpose is.  You remember why you came to the earth.  Your personal genius is the gift(s) that God gave you to accomplish your life’s purpose with.  There is no one else in the world with your unique gifts and skills.  

Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything.  Maybe it’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you so you can be who were meant to be in the first place.

  – Unknown

Your soul has been speaking to you through your heart since you were conceived.  You may in fact remember it from when you were a child, before someone convinced you not to listen to it.  They put you asleep, so that you wouldn’t hear it.  You woke up the moment that you decided that you were not going to allow your soul to be insulted any longer.  When you decided to stop listening to those lies, and accepted that you are a divine gift to this world.  You decided to stop just existing, you decided to start participating in life. 

The only limits you have are the limits you believe.

  –   Wayne Dyer

It is when this desire to fully live our lives awakens that we start to seek out more knowledge.  Many people will use prayer or meditation as a part of this process.  It helps to quiet the mind, so that the soul can be heard.  Have you ever had a thought or a dream about something that came true?  Have you ever thought about someone and then within minutes they called?  Have you ever had “Deja Vu”, that deep feeling that you have experienced something before, when you know that it has never happened before?  These are all soul communications.  Every experience adds to your personal growth.  We begin to release all of the false beliefs that held us in cages.  We  remove the barriers of judgment of those different from us, that kept people distant.  We become curious. 

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.

  –   Helen Keller

Now that you are conscious, your souls strong voice can lead you in your journey of transformation.  We are all born to be leaders, but sometimes we let life’s obstacles beat us down.  We need to learn to be resilient, and then help others to be resilient. What we learn is to stop trying to make things happen in a certain way that our mind has made up, and instead to let things unfold as they are supposed to.  We realize that we are on a divine timetable, not a human one.  We start to feel the connections to everyone and everything. There are lessons for us if we are willing to be still and watch them unfold in others peoples lives.  We see their troubles, their life patterns, their special gifts of the spirit.  When we can truly sift away all of the static of judgment away, we see them as God meant them to be.  It is so uplifting to see that, to be in that space.  It encourages us to try to be what God meant for us to be.

I think a spiritual journey is not so much a journey of discovery.  It’s a journey of recovery.  It’s a journey of uncovering your own inner nature. It’s already there.

  – Billy Corgan

Instead of being afraid and running our life from fears, we start shifting into that space of love more often.  We let the negative emotions pass through us with less hindrance.  We find that anger at the crazy or distracted driver ahead us sort of passes by like a cloud on a breezy summer day.  We are not seeking out conflict with others.  Those feelings of unrest and frustration that used to gather like a summer storm with thunder and lightning just break apart and disappear over the horizon.  We suddenly realize that those tiny frustrations with the kids, our spouse, that person who has the noisy habits at work – we suddenly realize that those negative emotions are less and less.   It is like the pressure that they were building up inside of us is just no longer there.  The itchy spot no longer is red, swollen, or angry looking.  It has faded away.

Spirituality can not be defined, but can be described as a journey to the center of the soul.

  – Perter Kemmsies

This doesn’t mean that we don’t have those days when we want to explode.  It is just that our attention is no longer constantly being grabbed by it.  We find ourselves dwelling more and more in the positive emotional vibrations.  We are all born to love everyone we meet.  Then fear is introduced to us, and we start being afraid of being hurt, being judged, being less than someone else.  So we protectively do that to others, to protect ourselves.  A spiritual awakening, or consciousness is stripping away those multitude of fears and putting the acceptance of love back into its place.  This is truly living in reality, because our journey has been to lead us back home to our purpose in being here now.

As with any journey, who you travel with can be more important than your destination.

  –  Unknown

The world has been waiting for you.  You are a catalyst to help others wake up, and become conscious of their life’s purpose.  To help them take action themselves.

We are spiritual beings on a physical journey . . .   There are no limitations, other than those that we impose upon ourselves.  Mastery is within our power – if we wish it to be.

  – Susan Barbara Apollon

This day, let us begin to live our purpose with passion, and give our sacred gifts to the world.

The world we see that seems so insane is the result of a belief system that is not working.  To perceive the world differently, we must be willing to change our belief system, let the past slip away, expand our sense of now, and dissolve the fear in our minds.

  – William James

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What if,…..?

“Nothing is a coincidence.  Everything you’re experiencing is meant to happen exactly how it’s happening.  Embrace the lessons.  Be grateful” – www.livelifehappy.com

• What if,…. all the answers are deep within my soul, calling to me – but I am not listening?
• What if,… there are no mistakes, and every experience that you have is to your benefit?
• What would happen to the stories that you tell yourself and others about your life, if you reframed them to your benefit?
• What would happen if you had never been a victim, but was instead an adventurer who was experiencing all that life has to offer?
• How would word a reframe, shift and change your life?
• What if,… it was all “good”?

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”  –  Horace Mann

The first thing I thought, was well some pretty bad things have happened – how can I just reframe it, to “it’s all good”?  I can do it if I can construct a framework that reflects a pattern that strings each thing together, like a string of pearls.  Each experience can be examined like an individual pearl.  Remember how a pearl is created?  It is an object that irritates the mussels, so that they begin putting a covering over the irritation, which becomes a pearl.  Mussels do this as part of their defense mechanism.  So what kind of covering can you put over every “bad” experience that turns it into a pearl?  How freeing is it to think, that you have the ability to cover over any bad experience and make it into something priceless?

“Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live” –  Robert Kennedy

Sometimes you can become so enamored with the tragedy, that you drag it around with you everywhere you go.  You stand up and testify to how life has done you wrong, and just look at what has happened to you.  You proudly present your wounds as though they are medals of honor.  What if instead…, tragedy was a tool of destiny to liberate you from the falsehood of fate, which lets fear determine your choices.

What if, … you have a divine blueprint written down in your soul, and now is the time to wake up and start creating the life you are meant to be living?

“There is a force within which gives you life, seek that.  In your body lies a priceless gem, seek that.  O wandering soul, if you were to find the greatest treasure, don’t look outside.  Look inside, and seek that”  –  Rumi

What if every experience has a purpose and they are all part of the plan?  Can you see a way that every pearl that you have on your long rope of pearls, is required and necessary to who you are becoming?

Most people don’t show up in their own lives.  We are taught at a young age not to express opinions different than the norm.  We are taught that to stick out and be different will just cause us pain and difficulties.  So like the turtle, we withdraw into our shell of protection and don’t venture out.  What if, … we stopped.  What if,… we took off that shell or mask, and stood up as who we truly are?

“A strong woman may remain silent when people talk behind her back.  But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t notice.  It simply means she chooses not to waste her energy on foolishness.  She has more important things to do” – Unknown

What if,… the reason the world seems to be so crazy right now, is that we are not showing up as who we truly are?

So, how do you figure that out?  Who are you really deep down inside?

“In order to experience the truth of things, you must have a clear mind, be brutally honest with yourself, and make innocence and vulnerability continually accessible, because your perception is always changing and there will always be more to learn and understand and experience” –  Amy Larson

One of the most important discoveries I made on my journey with LemonadeMakers is that the vision I saw initially grows and expands as I do.

I think that if you could see what it is really possible for you to become, you would not believe it.  You would not even set out on the journey, because it would seem too impossible for you to become that person.

That is why you are given small visions, that keep growing and expanding.  Each time you catch up to the vision, it steps out of range, so that you have to work and grow and expand yourself again and again.

Imagine that it is possible to discover who you really are capable of becoming and being?  What your purpose is?

To rekindle your passion into a bright steady flame that lights your way.  To understand what transforming your life really means?  To let go of all of the thoughts, judgments and stories that no longer serve you.

As you listen and try to connect to who you are, you get lost.  You hear the criticisms, judgments loud and clear, but you miss the compliments in your inner dialogs

• Would you be interested in discovering what you are truly capable of?
• Would you take the path less traveled?
• Would you have enough courage to undertake a journey that you know would be filled with mistakes, disappointments, as well as being a mind blowing adventure?
• Would you be willing to admit that you are in fact a divine creation; an amazing world leader – that just hasn’t fully shown up yet?
• Would you be willing to take that first step in discovering just how much you are truly capable of being and doing?

Are you interested in talking about your challenges, to encourage  others, to find/provide inspiration to continue on your individual journey? When you share the lessons of your journey, resilience is grown for everyone.

Chances are that what you’re struggling with, others are too. What life questions you have been asking yourself, others are asking themselves too. Get clear on what you want and how to obtain it. If your you’re interested in forming a weekly or biweekly zoom call, message me on LemonadeMakers.

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

Having Courage Is One Of The Six Impossible Things

“Alice: How long is forever?
White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second”

 – Lewis Carroll

Life seems like that sometimes. I remember years ago that we were driving north on I-5 in Oregon and we had just crested the top of a hill around Roseberg. You could see quite a way in front of you as the road sloped down into a valley. Ahead of us was a semi-tractor trailer and he ran over something that looked like shiny metal in the road. Immediately his tires blew and he started swerving and then the whole rig tipped onto its side.

For a moment it was like slow motion.  I could see so many small details as the whole scene played out like a movie. Then whoosh, time sped back up and my husband was pulling off the road and running back to make sure the driver was ok. The driver was just shocked by what had happened. But for me, it was the weirdest experience of time I have ever had. It was like the rabbit said, forever came in just one second.

“I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then”  – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

“May I have the courage today to live the life that I would love.  To postpone my dream no longer.  But do at last what I came here for and waste my heart on fear no more” – John O’Donohue

Courage is being in love with the anticipation of what comes next, even when we have no idea what that might be.

We Are Stronger Than We Know

Awaken To Your Soul’s Destiny

It took me years to find the magic of self transformation.  Each transformation I go through, awakens me a little more. It is a personal and sacred journey each time.  Each time I get curious about something, I know that my soul is sending me a new message to wake up.  It’s time to make another transformation, another change, another shift in my life.

I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.

  – Joshua Graham

I now know that I no longer have to walk through the dark night of the soul, to transform my life.  I think about the experiences in my past, and what I learned going through each experience of death and rebirth.  It is the death of something that needs to be released, something that no longer serves me but rather belongs to the old sleepwalking me.  It is the rebirth of the real me.  The parts of me that I hid deep within.  It could be something about myself that I disowned as a child.  It could be the dream that I was told wasn’t possible coming back to life.  It is the realization that I am whatever I choose to become.

I realized that strong souls are forged living through the fires of hell.  That the fire itself is healing, The fires may feel like they are consuming us, but they are refining us.  They burn off the false truths that we cling to.  Like false messiahs they promised they would keep us afloat, but it was all illusion.  They were shown to be false prophets of our subconscious, seeking to keep our souls bound, unmoving in chains.  The fires consume the false beliefs, freeing our souls rise up from the ashes like the phoenix.  We rise up  with wings of faith and soar into a brightly shining divine destiny.  

What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.

  – Charles Bukowski

While I prefer to live the rest of my life, proactively seeking transformation, I can still honor the forges of hell for the deep truths that they provided.  I am climbing up to the top of the next mountain summit, to view the next horizon of transformation.  Within each new transformation, there is a pattern that reappears in every persons life.  This pattern weaves itself through the tapestry of our life.  In one corner we have the scene of our home and family life.  In another section of the tapestry we find our employment or career.  In another scene we see the health of our physical body, while another reflects the health of our spiritual body. 

In all these scenes there is a common thread that winds through.  For myself, for years it was the fear of being seen.  What is so interesting is that I discovered this thread came from my mother and was actually her own pattern.  When I realized that it didn’t belong to me, it was as though the thread dissolved, and could no longer be located in my life tapestry.  We all have threads in our tapestry that don’t belong to us.  They belong to friends and family.  We need to pull and release these threads back to their true owners.

Other common threads or patterns in the tapestry are my own.  My fears, which hold me back.  They are like the loose hairs that thread and wind themselves into your laundry.  The fears wind around and through the patterns of the cloth.  Have you ever taken a item of clothing out of the dryer only to find stray hairs wound into the fabric of your clothes?  It isn’t part of the material, but it somehow has wound itself into the material.  When you pull on it, it will break, but it is really hard to get all of the hair out of the material.  That is what these patterns of fear are like.  We pull at them, and break them up.  But there always seems to be a part of them still there. 

I have a need to be all on fire, for I have mountains of ice about me to melt.

  – William Lloyd Garrison

There are also “not enough” threads which are the spaces were the material creates these little pills – the thread gathers into these little knobs, which affect the look of the item.  They are formed from abrasions in day to day life.  Places where we felt judged, not appreciated, ill-used.  These “not enough” threads get created from stories we have told ourselves all of our lives.  These stories, although we would swear are true, are in fact illusions.  When we get curious and start examining why we are rubbing our life the wrong way, we are able to shift these stories.  When patterns are broken, we transform the chaos into new beliefs.  Beliefs of being strong minded; strong souled; strong bodied; and strong hearted.  An awakened soul.

The most beautiful people I’ve known are those who have known trials, have known struggles, have known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.

  – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The reason people awaken when they do, is because they have finally stopped agreeing to things that insult their soul.   They wake up to the fact that they are no longer owned by the desires outside the body, but have awakened to their true nature.  Their heart is on fire, and they burn off the chains that have been holding them in place. 

Be true to life by being true to your purpose.  As you become present and thereby total in what you do, your actions become charged with spiritual power.

 – Eckhart Tolle

We are in fact spiritual beings, that are awakening to our purpose in becoming human.  We turn inward to remember why we are here and what we came to do. 

Go, knock at the door of your own heart.

 –  Rumi

That is where you start looking for your answers.  Enlightenment is a destructive process because we have to let go of things, stories really, that we have told our sleeping selves were true.  With each awakening we leave behind something or someone.  It takes courage to tear down the stone walls that we built to keep ourselves asleep.  Those stones were hidden deep within us, like unseen anchors they held us in place.  With enlightenment, we begin cutting through the iron chains with a sacred energy that comes through our divine connection.  Heating up the links until they snap apart, setting us free.

It takes courage to endure the sharp pains of self discovery, rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives.

  – Marianne Williamson

By realizing who we are at our deepest level, we find our personal genius.  That unique gift that the divine gave us, is like the fingerprint of our soul.  No one else has the same personal genius that we have.  Each personal genius is required to fulfill their life purpose and ignite their passions into action.  We are all like individual puzzle pieces sent to the earth to fulfill a divine purpose.  That we why some of us feel the force of Rumi’s words, “do not go back to sleep.”  Because the world is waiting on each of us to fulfill our divine purpose.

This Universe is not outside of you.  Look inside yourself; everything that you want, you already are.

 –  Rumi

Transformation, is a process.  If we fail to involve all of the steps in the process, what we end up with is temporary change.  We change for a few weeks, or maybe a few months, but eventually the rubber band of will power will snap and we will return to the previous habits and lifestyle.  Change is temporary.  Transformation is required to truly shift our life, our DNA, into a totally new being.  With each one of us that awakens, our gifts bring us one step closer to universal peace and harmony.

Behind the mask of ice that people wear, there beats a heart of fire.

  – Paulo Coelho

So be curious, and take that first step down the path to awaken.  Then be curious and take the next step to enlightenment.  Then be curious and take the next step to transformation. Then be curious and take the next step to the next horizon.  Then be curious and awaken just a little more.  Get curious and become even more enlightened and transformed again and again.

The meaning of life is to find your gift, the purpose of life is to give it away.

  – Joy J Golliver

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Can Life Be A Daring Adventure?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“The adventure of life is to learn. 

The goal of life is to grow. 

The nature of life is to change. 

The challenge of life is to overcome. 

The essence of life is to care. 

The secret of life is to dare. 

The beauty of life is to give. 

The joy of life is to love.” 

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

Events

The Best Is Yet To Come, In New Beginnings

“Always believe something wonderful is about to happen . . . ” – Unknown

“When the world says give up, hope whispers try one more time”  – Unknown

“A woman’s strength isn’t just about how much she can handle before she breaks.  It’s also about how much she must handle after she’s broken”  – Unknown

• Your first step, was because you wanted to get something or somewhere. 
• Your first word was because you wanted to communicate. 
• Your first day of school opened up a whole new world for you. 
• Going from grade school to junior high school to high school to college, each step opened a new door.  It also closed a door behind you. 
• Your first relationship, your saying “I do” and I will love you forever. 
• Seeing your newborn child for the first time, that beautiful baby that had been making its presence known for months being in your arms for the first time. 

Each first time, held a new promise, a hope of a dream coming true.  Each first was what you chose to make of it, to trust in the magic of a new beginning.

“A wise girl knows her limits.  A smart girl knows she has none”  – @getlanded