The Road To Success Is Discovered By Trying One More Time

Difficult things take a long time, impossible things a little longer.

  – Unknown

The mind and the eye are an interesting thing to think about in regards to our dreams.  The eye sees so much more than the mind can allow in.  We all have what is known as a reticular activator which acts as a filter for our brains.  What the eyes sees gets filtered into things that form a picture in our mind or what we are seeing.

Think about certain things that happen in your life.  Two examples might be getting pregnant (you or your significant other) or buying a new car.  When we aren’t getting a new car or pregnant, we are not interested in those things.  Our reticular activator screens that information away from us – because it isn’t something we are paying attention to.

But the minute we are pregnant we start seeing pregnant women everywhere we go.  We didn’t see any yesterday and now today already we have seen five pregnant women.  Same thing with buying that new car.  Driving down the freeway in our new car, we are passing or being passed by people driving a car just like ours.  We go shopping and see two cars just like ours parked in the lot.  Where were they yesterday?  They were there, they were just being filtered out.

Someday everything will all make perfect sense.  So for now, laugh at the confusion, smile through the tears, and keep reminding yourself that everything happens for a reason.

  – Unknown

I bring this up because we tend to make judgments about how things are working out by what we see with our physical eyes and mind.  But they can’t be 100% reliable because of our filtering system.  So sometimes this is why the heart and mind are in disagreement.  The heart isn’t being filtered by what the eyes see.  It sees from a totally different perspective.  It knows the blueprint of our dreams.  It looks only for ways to bring those dreams into reality.  So it makes plans, not on filtered information, but on information imprinted on our heart by God.

The minute you think of giving up, think of the reason why you held on for so long.

  – Unknown

I think that a lot of what becomes that one dream that drives us is because of our own life experience.  If we were lonely children, we tend to want to make sure that other children are never lonely.  That could mean that we are teachers, or in some way child advocates.  Maybe we entered the field of being a therapist.  Maybe we adopted children or work as a foster parent.  In some way, our career, our bent in how we live life would grow in such a way that we could help children not be lonely.  Whatever “damage” we feel in our lives, comes out in a compassionate way of helping others never having to suffer the way that we have.

I’m a damaged person, but I have hope and a will to not give up.

  – Juliana Hatfield

Hope is what keeps us going.  Our hope keeps us strong.  There are hills and valleys on every journey.  We have to travel through swamps and deserts.  Hope helps us motivate towards our goal.  When the rains come, the winds blow and the lightning strikes, we may have to take cover and rest until the storm passes, but that doesn’t mean that we are quitting.  We never give up our hope no matter how hard the situation is right now.

A strong person is not the one who doesn’t cry.  A strong person is the one who cries and sheds tears for a moment, then gets up and fights again.

  – Unknown

Sometimes that hope is just a thread, but as long as we act like it is a strong rope we can keep hope alive.  In watching a series called “Home Fires” there is a scene where the parents get that telegram stating that their son has been lost at sea during a battle in WWII.  The wife gets it and because she can’t bear to read it, she hides it in the kitchen.  If she doesn’t see the words, they won’t be true.  The husband finds it and is devastated, and confronts her.  He opens it and reads it and she looks at him with hope in her eyes.  It didn’t say he was dead – it said lost at sea.

Never give up until you’ve given out all your very best.  It’s better to fail trying than wondering what could have happened if you tried . . .

  –  Unknown

 There is a part of us that says, there is no way her son is still alive.  There is another part of us that clings to hope.  That clings to all of the miracle stories we have heard when someone survives something they shouldn’t have survived.  What you have to determine in your heart, is what kind of person do you want to be?  The person that hopes and prays for a miracle, or the person who has no hope.

Keep the faith.  The most amazing things in life tend to happen right at the moment you’re about to give up hope.

  – Unknown

In the past few months we have seen a lot of turmoil in our world.  There may be days when the news stories make you sad, disappointed, heartbroken or even scarred with what seems to be so much hatred being played out in the papers, TV and online.  Remember our reticular activator when everything seems so depressing.  What do we have our filters programed to see?

Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.

  – Camille Pissarro

The kindness that is happening in front of us; that we can find it we look for it online, and in the news.  Or do we have it programmed to find signs of racial hatred, unrest, violence.  The saying is that our life is directed by what we pay attention to.  So we need to make sure that those filters are showing us mankind’s wonderful qualities – they are there.  They just aren’t what sells papers or gets the ratings.  I think that one of the greatest things we could shift in our world is that – the ratings came from stories that reflects the wonderful things that happen around the world on a daily basis.  That we didn’t sensationalize the less than 1% and ignore the 99%.

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Music Flows From Heaven To Heal The Heart And Sooth The Mind

“There is something very wonderful about music.  Words are wonderful enough; but music is even more wonderful.  It speaks not to our thoughts as words do; it speaks through our hearts and spirits, to the very core and root of our souls.  Music soothes us, stirs us up, it puts noble feelings in us, it can make us cringe; and it can melt us to tears; and yet we have no idea how.  It is a language by itself, just as perfect in its ways as speech, as words, just as blessed” – Charles Kingsley

When I write poetry, I hear music in my head.  It can be a current song, or just snippets of songs that kind of meld together, but I hear music.  It’s like the words in each line have to conform in some way to the music in my head.  One of my “someday I’m going to do” things is to learn to play the piano.  I really want to understand the music from the heart and soul level.  I think I could be a song writer as poems seem to be a step away from lyrics. But it is one of those dreams that always plays second fiddle to whatever is currently creating the passion in my life.

“Music touches us emotionally, where words alone can’t” – Johnny Depp

I love movie soundtracks from my favorite movies.  Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Star Trek – epic movies that you can watch over and over again.  The soundtracks for each of the series have some of the same themes within them from movie to movie, and they have some new music.  Lord of the Rings for example has a specific melody for when the hobbits are involved.  When I listen to the soundtracks I remember the scenes they are attached to.  Battle scenes, scenes when a beloved character is killed, scenes with love, joy, sorrow, and death.  Without even knowing a movie you can listen to the soundtrack and you know what emotion is happening on the movie.

“I love music.  For me, music is morning coffee.  It’s mood medicine.  It’s pure magic.  A good song is like a good meal – I just want to inhale it and then a share bite with someone else”  – Hoda Kotb

One of my nephews got married in Bullhead City, AZ on New Years Eve. We stayed in Laughlin, NV and then went to St George to see my Aunt. We came home Saturday the 2nd, leaving around 1:00 PM and driving back to LA was a nightmare. I foolishly thought that leaving on Saturday we would be able to escape the crawling traffic on Sunday. The six hour drive took nine hours and would have probably been more if I hadn’t cut off at Highway 58 and cut across to I-5 that way and then down to 118 and home.

“Sometimes music is the only thing that takes your mind off everything else”  – Unknown

I share this because when you are in solid bumper to bumper traffic people seem to lose any manners that they might have had. People were driving on the shoulders, driving alongside the road on the desert, they were cutting people off, honking horns and of course the hand gestures. Every once in awhile I would have to take a deep centering breath because I could feel the frustration, anger, anxiety coming into my car from the people surrounding us. Music has a way of soothing the soul when you are in these types of tense feeling situations.

“Dear Music, thanks for  always clearing my head, healing my heart, and lifting my spirits”  – Lori Deschene

The other quote I loved and considered for this post was from an unknown author, “music speaks what cannot be expressed, soothes the mind and gives it a rest, heals the heart and makes it whole, flows from heaven to the soul.” I went with Plato because of “wings to the mind” and “flight to the imagination”. I love the visuals I get with the words, wings and flight.

The beats in a song are like the heart beating. A steady comforting sound. You hear the beating of your moms heart at conception. If you put your ears against your lovers chest you will hear the beating of their heart. It is life pumping through your body and soul until the last heartbeat echo’s off in the distance, and you return to your heavenly father.

There is also a rhythm to music and to beating of the heart. There is even a genre of music called “soul music”. It is a mixture of gospel and rhythm and blues music. It draws your body to move with the music. You might start dancing or clapping your hands, you just have to participate with your body.

“Music unwraps the heart, sings out the prayer. dances the spirit, and opens the soul”  – Mary Davis

When words fail you, music can still transport you up the vibrational scale from the depths of despair back into the nirvana of the soul, where beauty, joy and happiness live. It fills in the emptiness that you feel in your soul and like a string draws the soul up towards the light.

Martin Luther called music, “the art of the prophets” and said “it is one of the most magnificent and delightful presents God has given us.” Music transcends generations of men. It lives on long after the composer has left the earthly realm. It doesn’t require to be translated like words into one’s own language but exists in all languages.

“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life”  – Berthold Auerbach

It has even been said that “music is the prayer that the heart sings.” I know that there have been many times in my life that music was my only escape from the problems I was experiencing. It allowed me to regroup, put myself back together emotionally and go back into life feeling like things would be ok.

“Music was my refuge.  I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness”  – Maya Angelou

Years ago when my children were young, I would put on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons and clean my house. It made the housework go so much faster and not seem like such a chore. So whatever is going on with your life, just know that there is some music to go along with it, or to transport you away from it. You can go into deep meditation or get your party started and rock out your soul!

Take Every Chance, Drop Every Fear.

“Today I close the door to my past, open the door to my future, take a deep breath and step through to a new life”  – Unknown

You actually do this every single morning.  You may not realize it most mornings.  It is only special mornings that you truly see what is happening.  The first day to a new job.  Your wedding day.  The day a divorce is final.  The day you bury someone you loved.  They are all days when you truly see the door to the past shutting behind you.  And although you may only have a glimpse through this door to the future, you know that everything will be forever changed.

“Your teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself” – Chinese Proverb

If you are lucky you have teachers, mentors or coaches throughout your life.  You have them as children, and if you continue to all of secondary education you have them as adults.  But there comes a time when you leave school behind you.  I am mostly self taught.  I dropped out of high school to get married.  My parents never encouraged us to go to college.  They felt that it would take us away from God.  What I did have in my favor was I was smart and I loved learning.  Since I started reading I have read several books a week.  I would alternate between books that took me to a fantasy world where I could solve the murder; or have an adventure in space; or fight the barbarians in medieval times.  And then I would read a book that would teach me something I didn’t know.  I’ve been that way my whole life.

I knew my lack of an education was perceived as a liability (even to my subconscious), so I had to kick open doors to get them to let me show them what I could do.  I also equipped myself by taking a lot of classes online and job related adult education courses, that taught me what I needed to advance in my career.  I started out as a bookkeepers assistant.  I move up to accounting.  I switched over to mortgage financing.  My career has always a series of doors opening to advance up the ladder.  My original goal in school was to be an administrative assistant to someone important.  I went much further than that, I became someone important who had the administrative assistant.

I discovered I had a knack for knowing what to look for in loan applications.  I could see the missing pieces in the story it told.  I could see the incongruencies.  It was almost like a spot light shined on the issue.  I got to where I could almost tell when I picked up a file that there was fraud involved or not.  My gift in seeing where the patterns were broken, has served me well.

“Your life is a result of the choices you make . . .  If you don’t like your life it is time to start making better choices” – Michelle Pennel

When my mother died my whole world fell apart.  All of her lies came spilling out of the closet containing her skeletons.  I found myself in a broken world where I didn’t trust anyone, not even God.  It took me years to close all of those doors to the past.  Years to see that the doors to the future still contained wonderful things for my life.  Years of reading books to explore the possibilities.  Years of  getting certified in Herbal Medicine, as a Reiki Practitioner, and then as a Aroma therapist.  I was looking at a second career in these fields when my nephew was murdered.  Another couple of years went by.  This time I wasn’t mad at the whole world, and I wasn’t even mad at the killer.  I was saddened by our loss, saddened that this world had lost such a special young man, who only wanted to help others have a better life.

“Deep within your soul is a door that opens into a world of wonder.  Open the door and let the magic in” – Unknown

This time I was trying to figure out what was beyond the door that my nephew had opened to me.  I knew from experience that it would require facing fears of the unknown, because every door requires something new and different from you.  Expanding your comfort zone.  Learning that you have so much more potential than you have ever given yourself credit for.  I knew that I would self create obstacles that I would find along the way.  That is how fears work.  But this door was different.  It wasn’t a small round hobbit sized door.  No this door was like the door to the giants house in Jack and the Beanstalk.  When I looked through this door I could barely figure out the table and chairs let alone what else it might contain.  This door was truly scary.

“Follow your bliss . . . , and the universe will open doors where there were only walls”  – Connie Hanks

I knew that creating LemonadeMakers was part of going through this door.  I knew that everything in my life that I had learned, experienced, literally everything I have acquired would be necessary if I walked through this door.  I had a ragged life as a child, I have had some horrible experiences as an adult.  I knew that courage would be required to use and share all of it without exception.  So I wanted to make sure before I walked through, that I wasn’t going to turn tail and run away from this opportunity.  I know from the depths of my soul, that Carl’s death opened this door.  I wanted to make sure that I had the courage and conviction that would be necessary to give to LemonadeMakers.  That I wasn’t going to try, fail, and quit LemonadeMakers.  It felt like I would be dishonoring Carl’s memory in some way if I wasn’t able to be “all in”.

“Most people will go their whole lives and never understand this feeling” – Unknown

So I started writing.  Something that my inner saboteur had kept me from doing all of my life.  I was convinced I didn’t know enough.  That I would only embarrass myself.  I was a high school drop out – that is one of my saboteurs favorite weapons.  I would like to introduce my saboteur Kami to all of you.  She knows all of my weaknesses and pokes holes in the road I travel on.  She has blown up train tracks and bridges.  She has created massive road blocks.  Sometimes it seems like it takes forever to figure out that once again, I have my foot on the gas and brakes at the same time.

When I look back on the very first things I did, it was no more than sharing a quote and a couple of sentences.  But I kept expanding what I was doing.  Then I learned how to work a couple of software programs to create the quotes with the photos.  I created a Facebook page.  My writing kept improving.  I discovered a new gift in finding the perfect photos and quotes to go together.  People started liking things.  They started commenting, then sharing.  Some people told me that my grammar and punctuation wasn’t all that great.  But I kept preserving.  I proofread over and over, but some mistakes still come through.  I learned to believe that it was ok if everything wouldn’t pass an English teachers red pen.  It was my thoughts I was trying to share, and I think that is what is most important.

“Don’t just dream of success; create a plan and act upon it!  Your momentum creates the door upon which opportunity knocks”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Join some of your fellow LemonadeMakers as we go through the door of new opportunities.  We have been meeting up once a month with a live Zoom call. It is a huge door of possibility.  The kind of doorway that just keeps growing wider and wider so that all of you can step inside.  When you open doors, you will find all of your fears waiting for you – but you will also find the keys to the treasures of your heart and soul.  I can promise that it will lead you to somewhere you didn’t even know existed.  The real you!

It is a free call where we open doors to discuss whatever is top of mind.  If you have been encouraged by any of my posts – If you have been moved to make a change or transform something in your life, I hope that you will attend.  Everyone is contributing with some great groundbreaking thoughts and ideas.  When we have created a good foundation, we will look at new and deeper ways that you will be able to work with us directly in your own growth.

This will be a  door that no one can shut on you – only you can shut this door.  I hope you will walk through this door with us, because we have some transformations to get done!

Each Brushstroke Is Another Goal Put Into Action – Turning The Invisible, Visible.

“Make your life a masterpiece; imagine no limitations on what you can be, have or do”  – Brian Tracy

As you go through life, you are given glimpses through open doors of opportunities.  Most of the time you pass them by.  But once in awhile there is a door that grabs you.  It stirs your curiosity.  What would it be like to accomplish this dream, you wonder?  Like a blank canvas, with a range of colors on the palette it calls to use to use this color.  Try this one next.  What is critical at this point is to not overthink it.  That will ruin the painting.  You will get stuck with writers block if you question what the soul is whispering to you.  Instead you just need to challenge yourself to step into the room.  One step at a time you slowly step over to the easel.  You pick up the paint brush and start painting with the one color that grabs your attention.

“Make your life a masterpiece:  Step beyond the demands of the moment and begin right now to design and live the life you deserve”  – Tony Robbins

As you look at the canvas you might decide that you want a color that has a pinkish purple flavor to it.  When you look at your palette, you find two colors that sort of call out to you.  Two competing dreams as it were.  Which one do you pick?  Pick the one that is bolder in color.  The one that scares you a little to use it.  What will people think when they look at your painting?  Will they say it is too wild?  Too garish looking?  Pick the one that scares you.  It is the one that is going to grow you.  Always go for the scary colors.

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream”  – C.S. Lewis

Now how are you approaching this canvas?  I always think of the eccentric Frenchman artist type.  All wild colors, nothing matching.  All flair and panache.  When you step into a dream which is going to challenge you, you will need that flair of enthusiasm.  Think of the Martin Short character in “Father of the Bride”.  He was so enthusiastic that he could talk you into saying yes to something that you would have never tried.  And the amazing part of it, is that his taste was perfect.  You might have thought it was too much, but in fact it is just right.

“Some people will always throw stones in your path.  It depends on you what you make with them.  Wall or Bridge?  Remember you are the architect of your life . . . ”  – Unknown

“Live life fully while you’re here.  Experience everything.  Take care of yourself and your friends.  Have fun, be crazy, be weird.  Go out and screw up!  You’re going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process.  Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes:  find the cause of your problem and eliminate it.  Don’t try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human”  – Anthony Robbins

“I believe life is constantly testing us for our level of commitment, and life’s greatest rewards are reserved for those who demonstrate a never-ending commitment to act until they achieve.  This level of resolve can move mountains, but it must be constant and consistent.  As simplistic as this may sound, it is still the common denominator separating those who live their dreams from those who live in regret”  – Anthony Robbins

Visualization Is Key To Communicate With The Soul

“Hope is the thing with feathers – that perches in the soul – and sings the tune without the words – and never stops – at all” – Emily Dickenson

Hope is perching on your soul and sings to you every day. It tells you these wonderful stories of what you can accomplish in your life. Visualization is critical to hope, as it draws in everything you want in your lives. Hope is what keeps you going when you seem to be failing in bringing your vision into reality.

“I always think it’s important to constantly visualize success, but to consider failure, even for a second, so you can be prepared if things don’t work out just as planned” – Jen Gotch

3M was trying to create super strong adhesives when they accidentally created the glue on “Post it Notes”.  For years they couldn’t figure out how to use this glue in a commercial way. 

Then came a second accident.  One of their employees who sang in a church choir put the glue on a piece of paper so that he wouldn’t lose his place in the hymnal for the songs they were singing.  He discovered it could be removed and put back on without destroying the paper. 

Then employees used it for over 3 years experimenting with it before they started to market it.  Today it is one of their top selling products.  So just because you might fail at what you are trying to bring into reality, doesn’t mean it really is a failure – sometimes it is even better than what you were trying to create.

In the movie “The Secret” and the book that followed it, they talked about visualization. Many people will tell you that they have a hard time visualizing. 

If I tell you not to picture “your kitchen”, 99% of you immediately see your kitchen in your minds eye. It is a little harder to build a visualization of something that you have never seen, but block by block, with practice it can be done.

“By visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map.  And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful” – David McCandless

A good question to ask yourself when you’re lost is – “What is the task I now face in my journey?”

It seems easy to get lost in the search for meaning in your life.  Having meaning in your life isn’t some grand purpose of changing the world around you.  It’s about being in right relationship with the world around you.

A different question to ask, is “what is my soul wanting to express through me?”

This gets to the heart of your belief of what your destiny or purpose in life is.  Visualization is key to unlocking that door of opportunity.  Taking the time daily to meditate and allow your soul the space to talk to you is critical to obtaining the key to the deeper questions in your life.

This really helped me to connect deeper to my imagination. When I read books, I now see the story in my mind. The sun shining on the ocean as it flashes bright lights along the cresting waves.  I hear the waves crashing on the shoreline.  I feel the wind blowing and as I dig my toes down into the cool part of the sand, I smell the salt air, the tangy taste of it in the wind.  As I described this did you enter into my visualization?

I can totally enter the world being created by the author. When I am in this space, I see connections and possibilities that I have never thought of before.

This is how I learn from everything that I read, because I enter into a world I have no experience of. I love it when a really good movie or book brings you totally into the world they have created. You forget what you’re experiencing isn’t real.

“If you want to reach a goal, you must see the reaching in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal” – Zig Ziglar

I am sure that you heard the joke of the man who was on his rooftop during a flood.  The water was cresting higher and higher, as it inched up towards the top of the roof he had climbed.  He was sitting there waiting for rescue. He prayed to God for help. 

So, God sends him three chances for help.  The first one was some people with a canoe telling him to come down and get in the canoe.  “No thanks, God is sending me help” he tells them. Then God sends him some people with a motorboat telling him to climb on board and be saved.  “No thanks, God is sending me help” he tells them.  Then God sends him a helicopter and they lower down a ladder, and for the third time he says to his potential rescuers, “no thanks, God is sending me help”.

As the flood waters come higher, they eventually swamp the roof, and the man drowns. Upon entering heaven, he asks God, “why didn’t you save me?” God says, I sent a canoe, a motorboat and a helicopter, but you refused to get in.  We don’t know with the joke what sort of help he was expecting.  We just know that he kept declining the opportunity to save his life.  Maybe he had no idea, and so with no real visualization he didn’t recognize the opportunities.

Visualization is how you can attract the things you need, to bring your goals and dreams into reality. You have to remember that part of your journey, is the lessons you learn along the way.  By visualizing how you can grow and change, you speed toward our destination. By visualizing into the space, the gratitude of already having it, and using all of the senses in the visualization – you make it so real, that the divine opens doors of opportunity for you to receive it.

Synchronicity will bring it into your life. You have to take the risk; you have to grab the opportunity.  If you won’t get into the boat – then it goes past you and is gone.

The most important thing for you is to look for the doors and opportunities and grab them. Go through those doors, no matter how scared you are. Take the leap of faith that this is your answer.  Climb the ladder being presented.  Get into the helicopter.

We Have The Power, Freedom And Courage To Change

“Don’t force yourself to fit in where you don’t belong” – Unknown

“Whatever the new beginning is for you right now, allow yourself to be swept away by the sweet freedom that comes with it.  Growth is around the corner” – Amanda Christian

“Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once.  Breathe.  You’re strong.  You got this.  Take it day by day”  – Karen Salmansohn

Sometimes Brokenness Gives Birth To Transformation And Wisdom

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears”  – Mark Anthony

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”  – Socrates

“Ruin is a gift.  Ruin is the road to transformation”  – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Experience isn’t what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you” – Aldous Huxley

“We are so afraid to change careers, to end relationships, to outgrown people or places – and that’s just growth.  To me, choosing to go toward the cracking in order to keep expanding is the only way.  The only way to get out of pain is to go through it.  Pain is information”  – Sophia Bush

“This very moment, if you are living totally, all concern for the future disappears” –  Osho 

“There is no other greater ecstasy, than to know who you are”  – Osho

“The only limits you have are the limits you believe”  – Wayne Dyer

Stand In The Light, Risk Being Seen As You Are

“Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light” – Brene Brown

“I, for one, am actually still incredibly idealistic, and I still can credibly or very strongly believe that you have to keep fighting for what you believe in, because it’s only when you stop that you’ve truly lost” – Vanessa Kerry

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter” – Martin Luther King Jr

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” – Desmond Tutu

Freedom Is Found By Listening To The Heart

Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become . . . , almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.  Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  – Steve Jobs

I think that one of the hardest things for me to do is to take the time to just be.  To sit in prayer or meditation and just allow my heart to have its say.  I am so filled with doing and avoiding what really needs to be done.  The doing of things does need to happen – I have to pay my bills, read and respond to emails, write posts such as this.  I have to cook, clean and garden.  I work fulltime, so there are the hours spent there and commuting back and forth.  My elderly dad lives with me and I have to care for him.  So when I am avoiding something, like right now proof reading the final copy of my book, I am doing something like this that my mind says also needs to be done.  So allocating time to just sit and be like this photo, is hard for me.

I will persist until I succeed.  I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course my veins.  I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd.  I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, walk, and to sleep with the sheep.  I will persist until I succeed.

  – Og Mandino

We think that it is selfish.  That it is not high on the list of necessary things to do for this day.  So when Mastin Kipp sent me an email with a version of this, I was inspired to write a post of my own. Because taking the time to find the freedom to do these things is just as important as your day job.  It is just as important as eating, and more important than cleaning the house and doing laundry.  We are not really living if we don’t take the time to do these things, we are just existing.  We are asleep when we neglect these things.  If we are truly awake, conscious and aware, then this has to be a daily part of our life.

The truth is like a lion.  You don’t have to defend it.  Let it loose and it will defend itself.

  – St. Augustine

If you want more happiness, more joy in your life, check the list to see what is missing in your daily routine.  Trust in the whispers of your heart, for it is leading you intuitively to this practice.  Follow through on your highest intentions, changing them from wishes to commitments.  Voice what matters, because if you remain silent, you are holding back from your life purpose.  Pursue your dreams.  Run after them, putting them into action.  Step by step the pursuit of your dreams leads you to have confidence that what you are bringing to the world matters.  If you have that confidence, then it doesn’t matter what other people say or do, you will stay in pursuit of accomplishing your dreams.  Fulfilling your destiny becomes a primary focus in life.

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others.  And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion.  A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. 

  – Osho

Forgiveness for yourself and others is necessary because we all make mistakes.  We all fall short of perfection.  Some of our friends and family may say or do something that discourages us from the pursuit of our dreams.  They don’t see or feel what you do.  So they put up road blocks thinking that they are protecting us from being hurt, when in reality they are the ones hurting us.  Try saying something like this to them that expresses compassion with what they are feeling, “What I hear is that you are in fear for me, and for yourself, in how these dreams are going to be fulfilled.  How it will impact my life, your life and our relationship.”  If we exercise empathy, we can look beyond their fears to see that they do love us.  This allows us to reconcile their actions with their intentions, and grants the space for forgiveness for any hurt we may be feeling.  Opening up the space for their heart to talk to our heart, so that they can not only hear you, but begin to understand.

Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person.  You can call it compassionate listening.  You listen with only one purpose, to help him or her to empty his heart.

  – Thich Nhat Hanh

We must do the same thing for ourselves.  Our shadows present a whole dictionary of negative comments on how our dreams are not going to happen.  They put up brick walls to protect us from ourselves.  We need to take down each brick understanding the motivation.  To exercise self love and self trust, help these gremlin shadows to see how important these dreams are.  Enlist their help for ideas on how we can safely walk the path of fulfilling these dreams, presenting a win/win for ourselves.

You will never be able to escape from your heart.  So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.

  –  Paulo Coelho

Each morning is a new day.  Each morning spend a few minutes in prayer and meditation.  Listen to the whisper of your heart.  Do today what matters most.  Breathe.  Love.  Trust.  Follow the freedom of your heart.  Use your voice boldly.  Live in freedom the life you have always imagined.

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Do Not Let Fear Hold You Back

Never let your fears hold you back from pursuing your hopes – John F. Kennedy

• How does one become fearless?
• Can you really be totally fearless?
• Would you want to?

When I think that fear is standing in the way of something that I want to do, then I need to do something to break up that fear into smaller pieces.  My own experience in life so far, has been that some measure of fear is healthy.  It helps me to not be stupid and hurt myself.  It also feeds into my spirit of victory when I accomplish something by growing through the fear and doing it anyway.

• So how do you control fear in your life?
• How do you control your life at all?
• How do you figure out what is within your control and what isn’t?

Part of it starts with understanding what is and is not under your control.  When you accept responsibility for and control over, such things as your judgments, impulses, and desires, then your life changes completely.  These are things that are within your ability to control.

If you try to control other things beyond your control, that is when you just get weighed down. It is like trying to swim with cement shoes, it isn’t going to end well.

Here’s the truth about big life changes:  some people won’t come with you.  and that’s okay – Early Mama

You can’t control our reputation because it is based on exterior things that are beyond our control.  We can’t control the spin that other people put upon what we say or do.  We can however, chose to take the high road and not get mired down in the drama.  How many times have things you have said or done been taken out of context and used against you?  You will be driven crazy trying to control stuff like that.

Your anxiety or getting angry about it doesn’t make it go away.  It doesn’t suddenly become something that you can control.  All it does is make you unhappy and destroy your peace of mind.  You have the choice of continuing to self-inflict injuries upon yourself by trying to control it, or you can let it go.  Realize that in the end, people will either recognize you for who you really are, or they won’t.  It is not something within your control.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid? – Thegoodvibe.co

The realization that what other people do is not your job to control, and you can’t make them change, will shift your world completely.  You begin to focus on walking your own path.  You are no longer trying to control another person’s journey.  With your focus on your journey, the ups and downs of life even out.  Your path becomes more serene.  You aren’t trying to avoid drama; you are just not drawing it into your world.  If something comes into your space, you just take a few deep breaths, let go of any desire to change someone’s else’s journey and keep walking drama free.

What is amazing is that we also have the ability to shift the memories we have into ones that don’t create a negative emotional response inside of us.  Our brain allows us to recall memories and reconsolidate them.  This means that we can take a childhood memory and add new information that wasn’t available to us as children.  We can turn fearful memories into fearless ones.

Everything we want is on the other side of fear – Jack Canfield

My sister Julie for example is a real scaredy cat.  She jumps at anything.  When she was a teenager, there was a movie that came out with a ventriloquist dummy that was a horror show.  She was watching T.V. alone late at night and the commercial came on for the movie.  She was terrified that it was coming after her.  So, she went to my parents’ bedroom door, opened it and called for my mom.  My parents’ bedroom was up some stairs, and their bed was against the railing of the stairs.  So, my mom leaned over the railing to tell my sister to be quiet, so she didn’t wake up our dad.  When my sister saw a head looming down the staircase she screamed and fell over backwards, falling down the couple of stairs that she had started up.  Needless to say, my dad was woken up – lol.

My sister as an adult can laugh at this story and it is no longer scary, because she has new information available to her, that her teenage self didn’t have.  We can do this with any scary memory that we have.  Update our memory with new information.

Life is like a game.  You can play it safe and be good, or you can take a chance and be great – iliketoquote.com

With visualization we can do the same thing to our future.  We can see into our future regarding something that we are scared of.  We can go through the experience step by step over and over again in our mind.  We can cross over from being fearful of the situation to being confident of it.  This is exactly what Olympic Athlete’s do.  They see themselves performing their routines perfectly over and over again.  They have hooked up machines to them and discovered that the muscles of the athletes are actually firing just like they were physically doing the routine when they are just using visualization.  The more they do this, the better their skills become.

So, with visualization, we can preview anything coming up in our lives that we have intense fears over.  We can practice what we would say or do over and over again.  This will give us some confidence that we can accomplish the thing that we are afraid to do.  When a rock climber wants to solo a difficult climb without ropes, they start out with ropes.  They climb it several times to learn where to put their hands and feet.  They then replay the climb over and over again in their minds.  They lose a lot of the fear over the climb this way because they have gained confidence in their ability to do it by the repetition.

I am the master of my habits – #Goalgetter

So, break down the walls of fear that you built to keep you safe.  Start believing and visualizing your dreams coming true.  Take a practice run to see what you can do with the ropes of safety.  Then expand that with visualization.  Then go for the life you have been dreaming of living.  Don’t let fear hold you back.  Go become the person that you have never been, but wished you were.

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. 🙂