Your Struggle Today, Gives You Strength For Tomorrow

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It is human to be scared of taking risks.  If I was on this rock wall, I would be terrified.  Being scared is recognition of a choice.  A choice to stay safe on the safe ground called your “Comfort Zone”, or to do something really, really brave.  Comfort Zone’s create boundaries . . . , essentially prison walls where you feel enclosed and safe.  But here is the thing about the boundaries and walls – they don’t let the fresh air in.  They stifle life and smother you. 

The thing about being BRAVE is it doesn’t come with the absence of fear and hurt.  Bravery is the ability to look fear and hurt in the face and say move aside, you are in the way. 

  – Melissa Tumine

Inspiration is the breath of God.  Being inspired, is life giving . . . , breathing Gods spirit deep into your soul.  When we cross those boundaries of the comfort zone we soar . . . , flying we chase the wind, and touch the sky.  This happens because our soul feels the prison bars bend and break when we courageously break out of the comfort zone.  Can you remember the “first” times in your life?  Your first step?  Your first graded “A+” paper?  When you road your bike without training wheels for the first time?  Your first kiss?  The first day at your first job?  Your first child being born?  Your first grandchild?  Think about how your heart swells and bursts wide open.  How you want to shout out to the world “Look at me!  I did it!”.  You don’t walk on the floor, you float.  That is the feeling of inspiration, the breath of God.  When was the last time you felt that?  If it has been awhile, what could you do now, today, this week – what could you do for the first time that would make your heart beat fearlessly? 

Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage and something good will come of it. 

  – Benjamin Mee

To put that into perspective, Bull Riding Championships are called an “8 second ride”.  So 20 seconds can seem like forever, where you are doing something like that, it makes your heart pound.  Have you ever did something and then said, “Oh my God what did I just say yes to?”  Your destiny is deep within you.  You have hidden it.  You have to be brave enough to set it free.  You hid it because it scared you. It meant that you were different.  That you would be judged.  That some people would walk away from you.  Most of us don’t even see the full extent of our destiny.  We got scared just by seeing the outline of it.  You put limitations around it to cage it so that it didn’t escape.  Don’t do that to yourself.  Take the risk of letting it expand to its full glory. 

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.  They somehow already know what you truly want to become. 

 – Steve Jobs

Another kind of courage is not allowing anyone else to control who you are . . . , what you believe . . . , and what actions you choose to take in your life. 

Each time a person stands for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, they send a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and résistance.

  – Robert Kennedy

Taking a stand for yourself, for someone else is always scary.  But what is so interesting is that if you were to see into the minds of a crowd watching a bully, most of the crowd will not agree with what is happening.  They are all waiting for someone to take a stand.  And once someone does take a stand, others in the crowd will join with them.  They are just not brave enough to be the first person. 

A totally different kind of courage is standing up to your own friends, your family, your tribe. 

It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to your enemies, but a great deal more to stand up to your friends. 

  – Dumbledore, Harry Potter

These are people who you want to accept you, to love you.  When you take a risk, that they are all telling you not to take, it feels like they are no longer your friends.  You counted on their support and they withdrew it.  As you travel down the path from who you are now, to who you think you can be, what you discover is that some friends will be left behind.  Some friends may not understand, but they will still love and support you.  You will also make some new friends who will join you on your journey.  When you accept the responsibility for what is in your life currently, you are granted the power to change your life.  Courage is letting go of what can’t be changed . . . , and the waking up to what can be.

The brave men did not kill the dragons.  The brave men rode them. 

  – Game of Thrones

I love this!  First of all I have always had an affinity with dragons.  My personal dragons were imprisoned when I was young, because when I would get mad, my words would flame out of my mouth and burn people up.  So I pushed the dragon deep down, so that no one would get hurt.  When I finally released the dragon, I realized it was just protecting me from harm.  So we learned together what was really harmful, and what wasn’t.  We tamed the dragon flames.  My dragon gives me both the freedom to be me, and the bravery to fight when I need to . 

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. 

  – Ambrose Redmoon

I always hated how fairy tales painted dragons as the bad thing that must be destroyed.  Fear most of the time is a story that we tell ourselves.  So to have courage, to be brave, we just have to tell ourselves a different story. That crossing the boundaries doesn’t have to be scary.  That the feeling we get in our stomach doesn’t have to be fear, it can be anticipation.

At the edges of ancient maps they had “Beyond this place there be dragons” as a warning to not cross out of the boundary of the known world.  The best part of any journey is all of the wild stuff that happens along our path, as we strike out past the boundaries.  Be brave and go past the edge of the map, find the dragons and ride them.. 

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Talent Can Happen, Genius (Vocation) Must Happen

Doing what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible with talent is genius.

  – Henri Frederic Amiel

What is the difference between your talents and your vocation?  Your talent is the thing that you spend the 10,000 hours training for to become a master.  In the old days, you were apprenticed to a master craftman and you learned at the masters feet to grow your talent, your skills.  You have worked hard to become the best in your field of endeavor – you may have gone to school to learn to be a doctor, an accountant, a teacher.  Or you may have learned on the job how to be a plumber, an electrician etc…Your vocation is what you were made to do, it is a divine calling, a divine purpose. 

A Man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live and begins to live.

  –  Thomas Merton

Your vocation in life comes from where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.

   –  Frederick Buechner 

I firmly believe that all of us have a vocation, a calling.  That we are an individual puzzle piece that completes Gods plan for what is happening in our lifetime.  If we walk away from that, then that piece of the puzzle is missing, it is incomplete.  We might still be able to see what the puzzle is supposed to look like, but the hole is still there.  It is sometimes really scary and daunting to realize what our talents and vocation truly are meant to be.  We look at that and we get scared of failing to complete the picture.  We get scared of getting called up on stage to sing in front of an audience.  We get scared that if we truly shine, people will judge us as imperfect.  They will throw judgment or hatred for where we demonstrate that we are not perfect.  Of being called a fraud.  Of being laughed at. 

If you’re not the hero of your talent story, you simply become a player in one you didn’t choose.”

  –  Jermainne Perry

Sometimes walking away has nothing to do with weakness, and everything to do with strength.  We walk away not because we want others to realize our worth and value, but because we finally realize our own. 

  – Robert Tew

What we don’t realize is that true failure happens when we walk away.  When we plug our ears and ignore the calling.  When we deny who we are.  When we walk past that door of opportunity and say, “Oh no, I am not talented enough, capable enough, you have the wrong person”.  When we do that we end up living an unsatisfying life.  We drag ourselves to work everyday at a job we hate, doing boring work.  We numb ourselves at home with liquor, drugs, or being a couch potato, watching movies and T.V. and doing nothing with our life.

Everyone has talent, what is rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.

  –   Erica Jong

Everyone has a purpose in life . . , a unique gift or special talent to give to others.  And when we blend this unique talent with service to others we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.

  –  Deepak Chopra

Part of the journey of the intersection of talent and vocation, is that we have to go back in our lives and pull the vocation out of the deep hole that we buried it in.  How many times have you watched one of the many shows on T.V. for talent contests – whether singing, dancing, or being a comedian.  You hear person after person say that at some point in their life, people discouraged them.  Told them they weren’t good enough.  Not enough talent.  Rejected for auditions. 

Every man has his vocation.  The talent is the call.  There is one  direction in which all space is open to him.

  –  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because the editor said, “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas”.  It wasn’t true, he was just in the wrong job, not his vocation.  Oprah same thing.  She was fired because she couldn’t sever her emotions from her stories.  That is exactly what made her so good at her T.V. Show.  It was part of her vocation to follow the emotions of the stories being told.  Elvis after performing at “The Grand Ole Opry was told that he should return to being a truck driver.  It wasn’t that Elvis couldn’t perform, sing, or play his guitar.  It was that Country Western music wasn’t his vocation.    So don’t let rejections around your vocation stop you.  It may just be that you  haven’t yet found how your talent and vocation intersect. 

Start by doing what is necessary, then do what is possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.

  –   St. Francis of Assisi

Vocations usually start out as something small.  Maybe as a child you would draw pictures in crayon.  Your mom thought you were a genius.  As you grew older, you started drawing fashion designs for your dolls.  Then when you got into Junior High or High School you started taking art classes.  Your talents were nurtured and they grew.  Then one day, you discovered sculpture.  It took over your life.  You felt incomplete when you were not working with metal, stone, or marble.  

Entrusted with the task of crafting, to create a work of art, a masterpiece, your vocation sheds light on the path, so that you will know which way to go.  The vocation is built into you.  You literally have no choice. It is the air you breathe. 

If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire.

 –  St. Catherine of Seina

David was Michelangelo’s masterpiece.  He saw him in the marble and released him, a symbol of beauty and strength.  Look at what the world would have missed had his talent and vocation not intersected.  If he had walked away from his vocation, saying it was too much pressure.   

We must realize our own talents and, having realized, accept them; and play on them like a symphony in which all other instruments are harmonized to make a better universe.

  –  Jeane Dixon

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It Is A Magical World, Be True To You

“Life is meaningless only if we allow it to be.  Each of us has the power to give life meaning, to make our bodies and our words into instruments of love and hope.”  – Tom Head

When you approach each moment with fresh eyes and an open heart, you are no longer defined by your past pain or your fears for the future.  This is because you are not using that past pain or fear, as a filter to color every future experience.

Just because someone broke your heart doesn’t mean that everyone else will do so.  It doesn’t mean that you can’t trust yourself with anyone ever again.  Everything you experience is always a different experience.  You are not the same person you were prior to that experience.  The person you are currently having an experience with is not that person who hurt you.

Sometimes you just need to realize that just because you have had a bad day, doesn’t mean you have a bad life.  Just breathe, let it go.  Begin again.

“Magic is believing in yourself.  If you can do that, you can make anything happen” – Johann Wolfgang Van Goethe

Everything in life is temporary.  Both the good things and the bad things.  Nothing lasts forever, as moment by moment life changes you.  Most of what you term a bad experience, was simply judged as being bad by you.

You got a “D” or an “F” on an assignment.  You could judge that as being a bad experience.  Or it could be judged as a good experience because it served as a wakeup call, to pay attention to your studies.  Now you can graduate with honors and be successful in your chosen career.

Or it could even be the “stop” what you are doing call.  The call that says this isn’t what you want to do with your life.  That you need to stop going through the motions of making someone else happy.

If you find yourself in the wrong fairy tale,

either rewrite the story or leave it.

It could be the moment that you go after our dreams.

At a Hay House Event I attended; I enjoyed a seminar with Sonia Choquette.  I have been a fan of her books for years.  She is an intuitive spiritual teacher.  She told the story of how her marriage ended a couple of years ago, a total surprise to her.  She spoke about the falling apart, the recovery.  Then he came back and wanted to make it work, and then he left her again.  The second falling apart was not as bad.  She spoke about what all she learned about herself.   How much her daily practices saved her so much in recovery time.

It is funny about the good things being around the corner – you can look down the street, and you don’t see them.  It is physically impossible to know what is around a corner.  It is not until you walk around the corner that you see it.  So, the good thing surprises you just as much as the devastation does, because it catches you unaware.

“She believed in dreams all right, but she also believed in doing something about them…, When Prince Charming didn’t come along, she went over to the palace and got him. ” – Walt Disney

Even in the fairy tales you had to fight to get what you wanted.  It wasn’t all stardust and lollipops.  Bad things happened and had to be overcome.

Many times, just as you thought everything was going to end up perfect, another bad thing happened.  You somehow think that life will just roll everything perfectly to your door, without any effort on your part.  Or you think that if you just follow all the rules, life will repay you with what you want – that was me.  I believed if I followed all of the rule’s life would be perfect.

Life brings you lessons to build character.  It opens many doors, but most of them you pass by because you are not conscious and paying attention.  Then you complain that your dreams are not happening, and they must not be true.

• You need to work to make your dream come true.
• You need to realize that when you hit roadblocks it doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path.
• You need to fight for the fairytale, because it does exist…,
• Just remember that you are the Queen of your kingdom and only you know how to rule it.

There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind”   – C.S. Lewis

• It means that you believe in six impossible things before breakfast.
• That you dream improbable dreams and then create them.
• That you are a little crazy, because all of the best people are.
• That your dreams are entrenched in your soul, and the only way to release them is to make them come true.

Nothing is safe and everything changes.

So, reach out and touch the dragonflies and butterfly’s as you take flight.

Reach for the stars.

Dance with the fairies.

Howl at the moon.

Be a shapeshifter.

Life is a treasure hunt with a shifting map.  Find the chocolate.

Be happy, have fun, and enjoy the beauty of life.

 

The Secrets Of The Universe Are Imprinted Within Your Soul

 The signs and guidance that you seek are all around you.  The Universe works through people and if you stop to pay attention, there’s a theme that emerges from interactions, blog posts, quotes on social media and even the movies or shows you watch.  Get out of your head and start paying attention.

  –  Stephenie Zamora. 

So many times what we want is for the limo to arrive at our doorstop, to drop us off at the Academy Awards, to just have to walk up on stage and accept the Best Actress Award.  Forget the 10,000 hours to master the craft.  Forget the lumps and bumps of lessons along the way.  Forget the time it takes to make the right connections, to promote ourselves, to find an agent, to go on casting call after casting call, hearing “sorry, but your not what we are looking for”. 

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

  – Rumi

The thought that we have to do something perfectly the first time is such a lie.  If you love music and you want to be a concert pianist, the first time you sit at a piano or a keyboard, you are not going to play Chopin perfectly.  Never abandon your dreams, just because they will take time and lots of practice to transform you into who you dream of being. 

You are more than your thoughts, your body or your feelings.  You are a swirling vortex of limitless potential who is here to shake things up and create something new that the universe has never seen.

  –  Dr. Richard Barlett

The universe doesn’t give you what you ask for with your thoughts; it gives you what you demand with your actions.

  –   Dr. Steve Maraboli

It is making choices by taking the scary actions that make our heart beat so loud that everyone can hear it.  It is taking action, stepping on the stage of real life with the possible rejections, that will bring the universe into concerted action on our behalf.  We might feel that we should just want to hold the dream in the safe mode, where no one can poke holes in it, or damage and dent it.  But what is required in our actions, is to dig deep within us.  To find that place of strength and conviction in our dreams.  To mine for the gold, polish it up and display it for all to see.  To keep walking across that stage even if our heart stops.  Even if our entire body goes numb.  Even if we don’t think we can take another breath, we inhale a deep breath and we keep walking. 

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them.

  –  Elizabeth Gilbert

The universe has shaken you, to awaken you.  

 –  Mastin Kipp

A couple of weeks ago I had this dream.  I was driving down the 101 Freeway.  I was exactly in the middle lane, with two lanes on either side of me.  All of a sudden there was a car in my lane coming straight towards me, driving the wrong way.  I jerked awake as I heard these words, “Wake Up”.  I have thought a lot about this dream.  I sometimes have these dreams where I know that my soul is speaking to me.  That the divine is leading me.  I know they have an impact and meaning in my life, although I am not always sure what.  But they set me to looking for signs to their meaning.  What I took from this dream is that a big change is coming into my life – but I will only see it if I am awake and ready to take advantage of it.  As the weeks have passed, I think that I am seeing some possibilities of what it all means.  Some possibilities that profoundly scare me, because they are such a leap from where I am at, and that is usually a good sign. 

She knows it’s time to make a change.  She feels it on an energetic level that she can’t quite describe and maybe doesn’t even want to put into words.  It is a personal and sacred language, an inner message between her and her soul.

  – Molly McChord

Rarely do we realize that we are in the midst of the extraordinary.  Miracles occur all around us, signs from God show us the way, angels plead to be heard, but we pay little attention to them because we have been taught that we must follow certain formulas and rules if we want to find God.  We do not realize that God is wherever we allow him/her to enter.”

  –  Paulo Coelho

Relax.  Let go of the expectations,  Stop pushing what you want to happen, and release all anxiety.  Trust in your dreams.  Trust in the Divine.  Know in your heart that sometimes impossible things just happen and we call them miracles.  It happens when we let go of how we think it should work and just let it happen in the biggest, fastest way possible. 

Your best life is achieved by listening to the wisest part of you – what you know to be true.

  –  Cheryl Richardson

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The Journey Is Mandatory; Traveling With Baggage Is Not

If you are unhappy with anything…, whatever is bringing you down, get rid of it.  Because you’ll find that when you’re free, your true creativity, your true self comes out.

  – Tina Turner

When you let go of whatever the negative thing is, you are not agreeing that the situation was acceptable.  You are walking away because whatever is going on is not worth destroying you.  You release the anger, the frustration of trying to get someone else to see your truth; or trying to fix something that isn’t your business to fix.  You wall away, and you do not walk back and reclaim it, because someone promises that this time things will be different.  You walk away, leaving that baggage on the ground, and you climb up onto that plane and you fly far, far away.  Never settle.

You can’t reach for anything new, if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk.

  –   Louise Smith

Regrets are heavy baggage.  Whatever we walk away from or whatever we feel we have lost in our lives, usually have regrets attached to it.  What we said or didn’t say, what we should have done or did do.  Whatever didn’t turn out perfectly sits on the scale of our judgment against ourselves or others.  Forgive both yourself and others, wipe the scale clean of all debris.  Recycle those regrets, let go of the past, so that you can truly move on.

We are all responsible for the energy we have around us.  Drama Queens can’t exist without an audience.  Stop being one, and they will find someone else.  This creates space in your life for the right kind of people.  Those who see the real you, that you’ve buried deep within.  They hold up the mirror to you, so that you can see your potential.  The endless possibilities of who you really are.  They believe in you, because they love who you are, not who they want you to be.  These are once in a lifetime kinds of people.  Find them and keep them in your life.

We all fit together to create this experience we call life.  None of us can see the part we play or the way it all turns out.  Maybe the miracles that we see are just the tip of the iceberg.  And maybe we just don’t recognize the blessings that come as a result of terrible things.

  –  Making Faces, Amy Harmon. 

When my granddaughter and I saw the movie “Passengers”, I thought that quote really is the story line of the movie. 

A computer malfunction in the sleeping pod of the main male character happens and he gets woken up around 30 years into a flight of around 120 years.  During first year he goes crazy being alone.

important encounters are planned by the souls long before the bodies see each other.

  –  Paulo Coelho

Then one day he finds a sleeping pod of a beautiful woman and starts obsessing about waking her up.  Even though he knows he shouldn’t one day he does it.  At first she thinks that like him, it was a computer malfunction.  Then she discovers the truth, and her anger at what he has done to her life drives her crazy.  Then a third person, a ship employee is awakened due to continuing computer malfunctions.  They discover with his help that the ship is failing due to damage received from asteroids.  The ship employee dies from health complications created by his pod leaving them to try and save the ship of over 5,000 fellow passengers and the crew. 

In the process of doing this they almost die several times.  They discover that their being together is the miracle and blessing of their being able to save everyone else.  In saving them, they save themselves.  

I entered the after-loss broken and shattered.  It’s like I had this big bag of fragments I once called life and dumped them in the middle of this new world and said, “Here.  this is all I’ve got left.  What can I do with this?”

  –  Benjamin Allen

They come to peace with living out their lives together alone on the ship, knowing that they won’t reach their destination in their lifetime.  She learned to let go of the baggage of what he did to her.  He let go of the baggage of what he did.  They realized that without everything that happened to them, the entire ship would have been destroyed.  They let go of what they planned for their lives by taken this journey, and lived the journey they instead found with each other.  They realized that blessings can come as a result of terrible things.

We all have some sort of emotional baggage in our lives.  One bag is filled with things that people said to us, situations where our character was unfairly tarnished.  This bag is waiting for apologies that will most likely never happen.  Then there is this other bag of regrets where we lied to someone; promises we broke; things we said to others because our pain was so great that we needed to hurt someone else just as much as we were hurting.  The items contained in the bags could be listed down long pages.  They are not unique to us.  What we have to come to realize, is that we need to let them go.  All of them. 

I always liked the story of Noah’s Ark and the idea of starting anew by rescuing the things you like and leaving the rest behind.

  –  Zach Braff

In order to release yourself of this baggage you need to enter sacred space.  Go down into your heart and the soul of who you are.  Keep what builds you up.  Release everything negative.  When you find yourself, and release what is not yours to keep, you make space for your life to transform once again.  You start moving forward in your life once more.  Reach for what is in front of you.  When you know what you want next in life, you wake up excited about life.  If you aren’t excited about your life, this is a sign that it is time to give yourself healing.  Time to once again enter the chrysalis and transform your life. 

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Stop, Look Around, Believe In You

Insight is a new awareness about something.  I think it is easiest to see it play out in your life, when you look backwards in your life.  About 15 years ago, I started long range planning for what I would do in my retirement years.  I knew I wanted to have my own business, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.  I started attending seminars about holistic healthcare businesses, because I had been trained in Herbs, Aromatherapy and Reiki.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a practitioner with it, but I thought that if I leaned how to run a practice, it would be easily transferable to any other type of business.  At one of these seminars, I had a huge transitional life experience.

“Your perception of me is a reflection of you; my reaction to you is an awareness of me”  – Unknown

The facilitator called on me, as I had raised my hand to share something with the rest of the group.  It was a large group of around 100 or so people.  He looked at me, like he wasn’t sure if he knew me, but thought he did.  He asked if I had attended any of their other events and I said yes, three of them.  That was when it happened.  He made a motion like he was removing a literal cloak off my shoulders and said, “You are one of those invisible people.  I am removing your cloak of invisibility.”  It felt like in every single cell, in each strand of DNA a shift  occurred in that moment.  I felt like a spot light was centered on me.  I was blinded by the spotlight.

I knew in that moment, that I could never be invisible again.  It was the beginning of a multitude of shifts and changes in my life, some of which are still continuing today.  Change can happen within a single moment, but if you are not open to awareness, it will pass you by.  If I had just thought, “that’s a stupid thing to say”, it would have passed me by.  Why?  Because I wasn’t open to it happening.  How many things happen around you daily, where you miss the opportunity to shift and change your life because you are closed off?

This is why, even though you say and do whatever you can to help another person, you can’t change them.  They could be drowning in a bathtub and all they have to do is stand up to save themselves.  But if they are not open and aware, anything you say or do hits an invisible shield and has no impact on them.  It breaks your heart to watch them self destruct, to hurt themselves over and over and not be able to reach them.  They have to walk their own path.

“Fight for the fairy tale, it does exist”  – Joy F

Just remember, that for them too, change can happen in a single moment.  For Snow White it was a kiss that dislodged the poison apple.  For Sleeping Beauty the kiss woke her up.  It may be that your loved one just hasn’t hit their bottom yet.  That when they hit their bottom, you hope that like the fairy tale they will wake up.  That they will see that they just have to stand up to save themselves.  What is sad but true, is that most of the time hitting rock bottom doesn’t affect people the way you think it will.  It can be as simple as life catching you by surprise.  Because your mind is not prepared, it’s not on guard.  In that brief moment something as small as a comment can slide into your consciousness unimpeded.  At that moment, your perception of reality changes.

“When you change your thoughts and perception, you change the way you live”  – Rita Zahara

When I look back I can see that it was literally as if my reality changed to a new place.  It felt like all of that was in preparation for LemonadeMakers, as it was just a few months later that my nephew was murdered, which was the catalyst for creating LemonadeMakers.  It was if the timer went off, and Sheryl’s destiny gears began moving everything into place.

“Sometimes in the wind of change, we find our true direction”  – Unknown

Insight is like a faceted crystal, or a kaleidoscope.  Every time you look through it you turn to a new facet, or with one click on the wand, the kaleidoscope changes what you see.  You see a new perspective.  A different angle.  There are so many levels of awareness about what you are trying to see or understand.  It is up to you to be curious.  To ask questions.  To look at the subject through different lenses to see another level of awareness.  So our picture at the top of the post for example, shows a light bulb with an idea that pops into her brain.  Then you see the gears, these are the levels of awareness that she is running her idea through.  The question mark, is her insights, that again start running through more levels of awareness.

“Perception is a wave.  You change as your perception of something changes because you define yourself as a reflection of whatever you happen to perceive”  – Frederick Lenz

There is a game that a friend made up.  You had these slips of paper, and during dinner you would choose one slip and read the question written on it to another person at the dinner table.  I remember once I had the question, tell me a story about your life that you don’t think I know.  I asked my dad and he told me this wonderful story about something that happened when he was a kid.  It totally changed how I thought he was raised.  A little curiosity opened a new awareness, an insight about a man I thought I knew.

“A man of awareness knows that life is constantly changing.  Life is change.  There is only one thing permanent, and that is change.  Except change, everything else changes”  – Osho

You have had something happen in your past that changed your life.  Do you remember when you were a kid in grade school and they had those pictures that were partly formed and you have to connect the dots to complete the picture?  Awareness many times happens, when we look backwards after a change has happened.  All of a sudden we see connecting dots to different small life changes that prepared us for the bigger life change.  We had no idea, insight, or awareness that these seemingly small changes, were in fact a part of the larger picture of where we were going in life.

“I can be changed by what happens to me.  But I REFUSE to be REDUCED by it”  – Maya Angelou

How is it possible to have life change you, yet not be reduced by those changes?

“The spirit of her invincible heart guided her through the shadows”  – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

My cousin had a fitness test at work that triggered a heart attack.   How do you go through “bad things”, and yet not be reduced by it?  Perception.  At first everyone was really upset that this happened.  They were talking about suing his employer.  But when it was discovered at the hospital that he had Graves disease everyone’s perception of what happened shifted.  Without treatment, Graves’ disease can cause some serious and potentially fatal health problems, including: An irregular heartbeat that can lead to blood clots, stroke, heart failure, and other heart-related problems.  So what happened at work could have saved his life.

Perception is the meaning that you give to the thing that happened.  Have you seen those pictures that have a hidden picture in it?  Where some people see a beautiful woman, and others see a hag with a pointed hat – depending on their perception.  When someone points it out to you, now you can see both women.  Your perception is changed.

So many possibilities of something positive coming from any experience – it will all depend on the meaning that you put to it.

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything”  – George Bernard Shaw

So open up new doors.  Shut the doors behind you that no longer lead to anything positive.  Trust in the magic of new beginnings.  Don’t make it complicated.  Just begin.  Join us in our next monthly call of April 4th and learn about what you can do to have a more positive and fulfilling life.

“When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be”  –  Lao Tzu

Leave No Path Untaken, May You Always Do What You Are Afraid To Do

It is easy to run away from your problems.  Fear is hard to face, hard to shrink, hard to work through.

Facing whatever is in front of you in life, is never easy.  But doing so is building a muscle.  The more you do it, the stronger you get.  It not only makes you stronger, but you gain confidence that you can use in every area of your life.

We’ll inevitably face challenges in life.  The best defense is believing that we are strong, we will survive, and we will be better for it – Lori Desehene

Each time a storm comes into your life, it is a chance to transform your life.  Whether you choose it or you fight it, some part of you will change.

The change can be beneficial giving you strength, determination, self-confidence.  It can bring you emotions of joy, happiness, and an expanded heart.

OR, you can fight the change, and become a defeated, bitter, a victim of life.  It can bring emotions of anger, grief, injustice, and hatred.

It all depends on the path you choose to walk down.

My mom was diagnosed with lung cancer, with a short window of time before she would die from it.  The last 6 weeks I took care of her.  I have five sisters and one brother, and I am the oldest.  During those six weeks it was a reflection of what I am talking about here.  Some family members were there every day, others came only once or twice.  We had a service afterwards at her church.  Some family members came, and some didn’t.  That summer we had a family ceremony with all of her brothers and sisters and their families where we spread her ashes, and again some of my siblings came and some didn’t.

What I heard was how they couldn’t handle it – what I knew for myself is that even though it was the hardest thing I ever did, it was also the greatest blessing, and some of my siblings missed out on that blessing.

You can put a smile on your face each morning.  Then begin the stresses of getting the kids to school on time, breakfast made, going to work on time.  Then the car gets a flat tire or makes a horrible noise as you stop at a light.  The engine dies and it won’t restart.  Your boss reprimands you for something at work.  Your teenager swears at you and slams their bedroom door.  You get that phone call that our mom or dad is being admitted to the hospital with a heart attack.

The list could go on and on.  Each day, every week, every month, you have something that happens that stresses you out and makes you wish life was easier.

So, you paste that smile back on our face, and if asks you how you are doing, you say “everything is fine”.  You live a life on social media that only portrays the wonderful things in your life, because you’ve been taught that you don’t “air your dirty laundry”.

You think you have to pretend that you live a perfect life, because you think that everyone else does.

Let’s stop pretending things are ok when they are not, so we can pray for each other and know we’re not the only one who struggles – Renee Swope

• Sometimes when your life is not happy, you need to share that with a best friend.  You need to talk about it, because someone else is either going through the same thing or has gone through the same thing.   Stories tell you that you are not alone in any of your life experiences.
• Sometimes you just need a hug and a reminder, that while today is not the best day, there will be better days.  That what seems to be catastrophic and unending, is just a story you are making up about it to help relieve the stress and tension.
• Sometimes the bad things that are happening are waking you up to other choices in your life.
• Sometimes the bad things cause you to take out life’s road map and choose another way to your destination.
• Sometimes that change is the best thing that ever happened to you.

Have you ever had something happened that seemed like the worst thing, but when you look back on it, you realize that it redirected you to where you were actually trying to go?

Years ago, I took a new job, that ended up being short term.  When I was laid off, the mortgage market in Southern California had a small crash and I couldn’t find a job anywhere.  We moved in with my mom temporarily and ended up moving out of state to find a new job.  I had ruined my credit because of the long term unemployment.

It seemed like the worse decision I had ever made in taking that job that laid me off after only 4 months.  A bad decision that put my family at risk.

But in hindsight, the job I got laid off from, had given me a new skill, which turned out to be just what I needed to land the underwriting job that had been my goal for several years.  It looked like the wrong path, but was despite the rejection and pain, the perfect path.

You just need to believe in yourself.  We are all made in God’s image, which means that no obstacle, no mountain, no immense body of water – nothing can stop you, except you.

While you may sometimes feel that life is unfair, too painful, not worth it – the truth is that life is full of people just like you, trying to overcome each new obstacle.

Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change it –  Jamie Lee Curtis

So leave no path untaken.  Every single one has something wonderful hidden within it.

So, stretch and keep choosing a new path to the life you are stretching for.

Grace Whispers To Our Soul, Lighting Our Way To Our Destiny

 In a recent notes from the universe, Mike Dooley wrote,

When life hurts, when it baffles and confuses, when it doesn’t seem to work, these are just signs from me – as if I were tapping on your shoulder or whispering in your ear, trying to point out that something really, really important, is being misunderstood.
Warm hugs,

  -The Universe

This is when we need grace to come into our life. When we need to shift our thinking. When we need reminding that life isn’t happening to you, it is happening for you. When we realize that we haven’t been listening to the whispers of the soul. When we finally notice that we are holding onto the present so hard, that we are preventing the future from being able to move in. 

There are plenty of difficult obstacles in your path.  Don’t allow yourself to become one of them.

  –  Ralph Marston

Imagine that you are driving down a long flat desolate desert road. You see nothing for miles and miles but desert scrub brush and more road. It is late afternoon and the sun is nearing sunset. Every time you think you must be nearing the end of it, all you can see is more miles of unending road. Then from the backseat you hear for the hundredth time, “are we there yet?” Those sweet darling children that are hot, tired and hungry, whose constant refrain for the past two hours has been, “are we there yet?”

The impediment to action advances action.  What stands in the way, becomes the way. 

 – Marcus Aurelius

Obstacles in our path are actually a sign that we are making progress. Obstacles are not road blocks, they are stepping stones that confirm you are on the right path.  They are like mile markers on the long desert road. The numbers get higher and higher telling us how many miles we have actually traveled. They are proof of progress.

Eventually all things fall into place.  Until then, laugh at the confusion, live for the moments, and know everything happens for a reason.

  –  Albert Schweitzer

What we forget is that it is necessary for things to fall apart, in order that they can be shifted into coming back together in a new way. Think of the Rubik’s cube.  The goal was to get each of the colors solid on each of the six sides of the block.  They actually called them stress relievers.  Are we in resistance  when we are throwing the cube against the wall?   Or are we in acceptance that we can figure it out ? Are we there yet?  Do we have the vision to see obstacles as opportunities?

To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease and lightness. This state is then no longer dependent upon things being in a certain way, good or bad.

  – Eckhart Tolle

The road being unending is just an illusion, just like the illusions of water on the hot desert road that disappear as we get close to them. How long the journey takes us is neither good or bad, it just the illusion that we attach to it that makes it seem that way.

We are like those children, with our journey of self improvement and personal development. We are constantly asking the divine, “are we there yet?” This is because we are constantly in resistance to our journey. We are resistant to transformation and change. This is where grace comes in, as we stumble towards the light. Grace is seen in the power of letting go and the power of moving on. 

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

  –  Socrates

Let the heat of the hot desert burn away all resistance. Let the hot winds of the desert strip away all of the excuses. Let the grace of a gentle healing rain restore your soul. Give up the need to know or understand.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace – only that it meets us where we are, but does not leave us where it found us.” Grace changes everything.

  – Anne Lamott

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Be The Drop, The Ripple, That Shifts The World

“No one in the world was ever you before, with your particular gifts and abilities and possibilities” – Joseph Campbell

At conception you were granted a “stone”, a sacred life purpose, that you are to “cast across the waters”.  That stone’s purpose is to create many ripples.  Those ripples begin to change you from the moment of casting that stone.  The ripples created also impact many others.  As you cast that stone you set out on the journey of discovering and living your life purpose.

As you walk that path, it shifts and changes both you and the world in some way.  This is because you are impacted by everyone else’s ripples.  Each ripple touches and changes the other ripples.

For each stone that is cast or not cast, there is a change in the water.  It doesn’t matter if you are someone who is hoarding their stone afraid to cast them, or you are one who grabs the courage and risks casting your own “stone” or life purpose.  There is always an impact.

“The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion’– Paulo Coelho

You were born with a reluctance to change.  You resist it.  You fear it.  You create stories around every impulse to create change in your life.  Why?  Because you’re human.

You build walls, not to keep other people out, as much as to keep yourself safe within.

As a human you also have this calling to improve your life.  You demonstrate this every January when you create New Year’s Resolutions around the changes you want to make in your life.  Dreams you want to materialize.  Goals that you want to achieve.  You work hard to bring them into reality.

The funny thing is that you keep these competing challenges active in your life.  You don’t want to change, yet you want your dreams to come into reality.  You make it hard work by fighting yourself internally around the changes you earnestly desire to make.  You don’t know what is worse, that you try and fail, or that you try and succeed.

How do the doubts show up?  You are afraid that you will lose your soul along the journey to success.  That you will become too proud; that money will change you into someone you won’t like; that the cost will outweigh the benefits.

You are also just as terrified that you will fail to live your soul’s unique version of success.  You compare your journey with all of those that you know.  You compete, you judge; You are envious, or you pity their fall from grace.  You are full of the dark emotions such as anger, regret, worry, blame, guilt and fear.  You have people in your life that threaten your peace of mind and your self-worth.  Worst of all you have your own judgmental inner self.

“We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced”  –  Malala Yousafazi

You may have been given a powerful life purpose, such as Mother Teresa and Malala.  You may have been given a small vision and life purpose.  No matter how small or powerful your life purpose is, you will come up against obstacles in fulfilling it.

You have made up stories about what has happened in your life since childhood.  Those stories will either weaken or strengthen you, depending on how you have cast yourself.

The choice is always within to cast your stone and live up your full potential or hide from your true potential and play small.  When you play small you will cast blame your parents, your “ex”, your employer, or your best friend who provided the knife that stabbed you in the back.  That way you can create the victimhood that keeps you safely hoarding your “stone” and refusing to allow change to transform you into something powerful beyond measure.  To transform you into who you are meant to be to fulfill your divine purpose.

“Just as one drop of water creates countless ripples, so does one gesture of kindness or love change countless lives”  – Randi G Fine

Water is an ultimate teacher for you.  It changes shape to adapt to its situation.

Steam, fog, a cool refreshing liquid against your skin, a single snowflake, a sheet of ice or a mountain glacier, a hot volcanic pool of water that would be death to enter.

Oceans waters waves kiss the shoreline gently, in a storm it pounds against the rocks wearing them down into small particles that get dragged deep onto the ocean floor.  It carves into the earth deep canyons and flows down those same canyons as a beautiful waterfall.

It both gives and takes life.  It is neither good or evil, light or dark.  It reflects back to you how if you take action with your stone or conversely you have inaction with your stone, still an impact is made on this earth.

In a different way, you can have what they are now terming “Raindrop” moments.  This is the disruption of a certain type of business, by new developments that take over in technology.

Think of things such as physical books in print, newspapers, music in CD/Albums, which have become digital.  Think of live streaming and all of the options you now have in watching movies and T.V. and the loss of business with cable companies and how it is changing the nature of both entertainment and business.

We can see the future disruptions in the movie and TV industries, changing from having human actors to artificial actors.

We see businesses such as Taxi’s being impacted by new businesses such as Uber.

These are all the results of someone who cast their stone across the water and created a ripple that was felt around the world.  They made an impact.

Change happens whether you want it to or not.  What water has to teach us is the ability to adapt, to improvise, and to overcome.  It teaches you to shift your shape and transform.  You have your “stone”, the divine purpose that you are here to achieve.  The method of how you are doing so, is within you.

The ability to change, shift your shape, to transform, is what brings you to success. You must be that change that you wish to see in the world.  If you think that world hunger is wrong, what are you doing to feed someone?  Whatever you have strong beliefs around, what are you individually doing to make that change in your own space in this world?

“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks”–  Christopher Hitchens

Be like water and adapt, improvise, overcome, shift your shape (consciousness), transform.

At some point in your journey you will come to a crossroads.  You will have to pick a path (without any ability to know), if it will or will not lead you to your destination.  You have to ask yourself that unanswerable question, Do I go forwards, backwards, left, right, diagonal?

Steve Jobs asked this question to John Sculley when he was vice president at PepsiCo, before Apple was a household name.  “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

Do not allow anyone’s definition of who you are, including your own, to define who you are.  Like water, you can transform into what is needed to travel your own unique path in life.

The important thing is to stay curious, keep looking for open doors, keep asking unanswerable questions.  To quiet the mind, and to listen to the soul, which is the source of the unanswerable questions.  To go deep within, to visit and learn from the place our of real existence.  Promise yourself, to not permit fear of failure or fear of greatness keep you frozen in place.

“Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle” –  Christian D. Larson

That something is divine guidance, trust in it and don’t stop.

Listen To Your Soul

 

When you can quiet the fluctuations of your mind and drift into stillness and silence, you can finally hear the whispers of your heart.

  –   davidji

Silence isn’t just empty space.  It is the container that holds all of the answers.  But you can’t access it, until you release what you think life should be.  It is only then that you can begin to see what is, and accept it.  When you can process life as it is, only then you can see what it can be.  That is the beginning of the journey of transformation.  Because it is only in this place that you can begin to hear the sound of your soul.   

True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.

  –   William Penn

It is in the silence you begin to hear your own heart.  It is in the heart that the soul hears the whispers of the divine, Gods answers.  This is where true intelligence is, not in the mind.  By listening to this voice, you see things in a different light, a different space.  This is the space that you hear God’s voice answering those prayers for direction.  That is the space where your soul is at peace with your minds thoughts.

Dare to stand before those you fear and speak your mind, even if your voice shakes.

  –   Maggie Kuhn

This is where what they call “out of the box” thinking occurs.  It is the place where the curiosity starts, where creativity lives, where you can find the right solutions.  It is the place of firm collaboration of the mind, body and soul.  Where the spirit and soul commune to stand in an overwhelming force for doing the right thing, regardless of what anyone else is saying or doing. 

 It’s a shame when the things that are on your mind and in your heart, never reach your lips.

  – Unknown

The worst thing that can happen is for people to be too ashamed, too scared, or feel too unworthy to speak their own truth.  When other people to try crush you because you don’t share the same religion, the same culture, the same language, the same color of skin, or the same sexual orientation the human race is being robbed.  We should welcome all expression.  Risk being seen, not just in all of your glory,  but with all of your imperfections..

The biggest bully most of us will ever face lives within us, located inside our own heads.  The screaming thoughts that we hurl at ourselves about ourselves, we would never allow anyone to say to us.  We worry about what kind of person we would be if we let loose who we really are.  That we are too much, too emotional, too loving, too sensitive.  That we are a bad person; that everyone would judge us as not enough and we will be destroyed.  We don’t give ourselves the love we give to others, the grace and forgiveness that we give to others. 

 Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

  –  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Like most things in life, silence also has it shadow that gets expressed out in the world.  Martin Luther King Jr. wrote about this shadow when he said:

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. 

  – Martin Luther King Jr.

This is what all civil unrest and protests comes from.  Something that matters so much that they are willing to step outside of fear of judgment or retribution.  I know that to me these people are like modern day Joan of Arc’s.  Their bravery lies in standing in protest, being willing to be beaten, hit with water cannons, or tear gas. To be arrested or even the ultimate sacrifice of their lives.  I may not always agree with their beliefs, or their methods.  But I do praise their courage that they are willing to stand up for their ideals.

They say that time heals all wounds.  It isn’t the passage of time itself that heals.  It is the knowledge and application of that knowledge (using it wisely) that heals.  I know that from the murder of my nephew, there are stages of grief.  The more distance there is from the actual murder, the more time the raw emotions have to pass through you.  It is the emotions that create the pain and suffering.  But you can only live in that place of raw emotions for so long.  If you don’t process through them, they will literally drive you insane.  It is self preservation that moves those emotions through you.

The ultimate way of Being lies beyond all contradictory pairs of opposites with which our two dimensional thinking mind operates.  As soon as we are successful in silencing the restless activity of the thinking mind and give a chance to intuition, the pure all embracing spirit in us will manifest effortlessly.

  – Anagarika Govinda

Intuition and creativity takes you on a wild ride of so many options and choices, it is life inspiring, life fulfilling, and more valuable that all of the gold in Fort Knox. This is because life is not just light and dark, and choices are not just this or that.  We live in a multi-dimensional universe, and we were created in God’s image.  Each of us has the power of miracles within us.  When we embrace his spirit and power, we manifest our divine destiny.

 Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

  –  Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt is one of my heroes.  She is on my bucket list of people that I would love to have a long visit with.  She has such great wisdom, and she was an amazing woman.  When we operate from that space of great minds, the soul speaks. 

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.

  –  Ram Dass

It helps when you surround yourself with people who can hear the sound of your soul, as well as their own.  If you listen to the voice of intuition, the voice of the soul, you will find the way of life that you love, that was designed just for you.  Then all that is left is to have the courage to live it.

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Ask, Seek, Knock, But Most Importantly, Open The Door

One of my favorite scriptures is, “So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.” Luke 11:9.  So why is it, when the door is opened to us, we are so afraid to step through it?

Always continue to grow.  It is possible to achieve what you wish, if you take the time to learn who you are, and are willing to be who you were meant to be.

  – Embellished Minds

Babies are all about growth.  It is almost like you can see them growing in what they are learning, and in the growth of their young bodies.  When we are babies, somewhere around the time we start rolling around and trying to crawl we get to go into a walker.  The walker opens up a whole new world for us.  I remember with my first born that once he got into the walker, there wasn’t a plant in my moms living room that had any leaves left within his reach.  The walker opened a door of growth for him and he took advantage of it.  Nothing was safe from those tiny hands.

It is impossible to live without failing at something.  Unless you live so cautiously that you  might as well not have lived at all.  In which case you fail by default.

  – J.K. Rowling

As older kids, we have things that we wanted really, really bad.  Maybe it was our first bike.  We got it, with training wheels and start learning to ride the bike.  Then we begged to have the training wheels off.  We accepted that as part of learning to ride the bike we would fall.  Finally it happens and after a few crash and burns, we are riding down the street.  A whole new world of freedom opens up for us.  Now we can ride our bikes to our friends house, or to the movies, or the grocery store.  Distance was no longer a problem.

Whatever makes you uncomfortable is your biggest opportunity for growth.

  – Bryant Gill

At some point in our growing up, we stop thinking that those open doors are a good thing.  We start becoming afraid of them.  Start becoming afraid of growth.  We start to worry about failing.  We realize that once we step through that door, we are closing the door to our past behind us. The future is uncertain and scary. There are no guarantees that walking through the door is going to turn out the way we expect. In fact, in most cases it won’t be what we expect. But each door that we step through is the opportunity to create something new and wonderful in our life. 

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

  –  Paulo Coelho

It reminds me of the Garth Brooks song, “Thank God for unanswered prayers.” What we think we want in our lives, is often a small, safe vision. What the divine has planned for us, is a much larger vision. The difference between the two happening, is our personal growth. Each new beginning requires us to walk away from an ending.

We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

  –  Joseph Campbell

This door is something that is only open to you, that only you can see. So when you shut the door to your past behind you, others around you, who love and care about you, may panic. You can try and explain it to them, and they still might not understand. Because you are seeing this door through the eyes of faith. Through the heartfelt vision and intuition, that is saying to you, yes – step through this door. Take the leap of faith. You will have the wings to carry you across the great divide. 

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

  –  Walt Disney

It is so scary to walk through the door, because you know in your heart of hearts, that your vision is being reflected at the end of a long tunnel. You aren’t sure what is between you and the end of the tunnel. You don’t know how this will change your life, but you know it will change. You are afraid of what will need to be released, in order to grab onto this opportunity. 

Sometimes, divine revelation simply means adjusting your brain to hear what your heart already knows.

  –  Dan Brown, Angels and Demons

One of my favorite Alice in Wonderland quotes, “I knew who I was this morning, but I’ve changed a few times since then.” This is what happens every time we step through a new door. Some things get too small, and some things get too big. Anything that no longer fits, is left behind.  A very little key can open a heavy door. 

There are things known, and things unknown, and in between are the doors.

  –  Jim Morrison

We have so many more open doors in front of us, we just don’t see them.  We can’t perceive them, because most of the time we won’t move unless circumstances force us to do so.  How many times have you thought I should leave this job, or this relationship?  We are unhappy.  We don’t see things getting better, instead they are going downhill fast.  Yet day after day, week after week, month after month, we are still there. 

If the doors of perception were cleaned, everything would appear to man as it is, INFINITE. 

  –  William Blake

Then one day it happens, and our employer lays us off or our partner says goodbye and leaves.  And we are broken hearted, even though it is something that was making us unhappy.  It’s because our doors of perception are dirty, and we can’t see through the dirt, to the wonder and beauty on the other side of that door.  We literally wait until the pain becomes so great, that it forces us to change.

Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.

  J.K. Rowling

Every adventure requires the first step,…. and remember, all adventurers are thought to be mad! According to Alice, all the best people are.  If you could open a door to anywhere, where would you go?  Start walking down the hallway.  You will see door after door after door of possibilities.  The key is in your hand.  The door is right there. 

The door is wide and open, don’t go back to sleep.

  –   Rumi

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Grace, Accepting, Receiving, And Giving Bring True Freedom

Grace comes into your soul when:

• When you face who you are – acknowledging the real reasons why you do what you do
• What your actions have been – even the ones you are hiding from yourself and others
• You face yourself with no excuses – the choice was entirely yours, not because of others
• As honestly as you can do it – without illusions or rose-colored glasses

If you dig down to the bottom of the matter, you will find that you have done the best you can, with what you knew at that time.  Sometimes that falls short of what you wanted to happen.  It is impossible to see where the entire string of possible consequences of a decision can take you.  It is impossible to know what you or will not do until the experience happens.

That’s when a real decision must be made on how to handle what’s happened.  Hindsight only helps you to see where the smallest of your actions may have led you astray, unfortunately, hindsight all comes too late to be of any use.

It is vitally important when plans have gone astray to give yourself gifts as balms for our health and wellbeing.

• The gifts of compassion for intentions gone astray.
• The gift of acceptance of what is, guilt heals nothing.
• The gift of love, for knowing that you can and will be better.

To love a person is to see all of their magic and to remind them of it when they have forgotten.  That is the beauty of reflection.  When you see the goodness in me, you are also seeing it in yourself.  The same is true of the judgments you make about others.  It speaks to something in yourself that you have judged as being “not enough”.  Grace helps you to accept the good and the bad in both.

“You can’t pick and choose what parts of her to love” – Heir of Fire, Sarah J Maas

Everyone is a rose with thorns.  You are an Amazonian Queen with warriors’ blood that rises up when you are challenged.  You are not reduced by failures, but rather grow stronger through each step through them.  You don’t just go through the storm; you ride through it shaking the world.  There are some who will find fault with you.  They even throw stones, rocks, and arrows at you.

They are challenged by your not accepting the “norms”.  By your not staying safely inside the box.  What you have learned is that the only way to truly live life, is to dare greatly.

You might lose your way momentarily, but the winds of courage will blow away the clouds that covered your vision.  You will win through, even though at times you may just want to die and be done.  You came to earth to live your life on purpose.  You don’t have to apologize for doing so.  You may be flawed, but you are still priceless.

In life you are tested as you climb up the proverbial mountain.  You may reach the top and think, ‘I made it!’  Test over.  But you forget that you also have to climb down the mountain. It can be as hard to get down as it was to get up the mountain.

I always think of cats.  They climb up into the trees, on the top of roofs etc. . . .  but it is the getting down part that has them crying for help, seeking to be rescued.

In both going up and coming back down, grace is how you are able to navigate through both the darkness and the light.  Accepting the lessons learned, taking them to heart, and processing them into wisdom is the meaning of divine grace.

A Strong Woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely.  Her tears flow just as abundantly as her laugher…,

A Strong Woman is both soft and powerful, she is both practical and spiritual…,

A Strong Woman in her essence is a gift to the world…,

A Strong Woman doesn’t “need” a partner to complete her, she is whole in herself…,

A Strong Woman is fierce, fearless and independent. 

“Sometimes, being strong is to forgive in the name of love, to make someone smile when our own heart is broken, to comfort a friend when we ourselves needed help and to keep the faith when we have lost hope” – Brigitte Nicole

Starting in your own families, your own neighborhoods, you need to show that love is the answer to all of the questions.  Remember how far “we” have come in society.

Life has always been “some steps forward, and some steps backward”, so don’t let the fear that is being dished out discourage you.  Keep walking forward in faith that you have won battles in the past, and you will win battles today, and tomorrow.

“Perhaps the greatest charity comes when we are kind to each other, when we don’t judge or categorize someone else, when we simply give each other the benefit of the doubt or remain quiet. 

Charity is accepting someone’s differences, weaknesses, and shortcomings; having patience with someone who has let us down; or resisting the impulse to become offended when someone doesn’t handle something the way we might have hoped. 

Charity is refusing to take advantage of another’s weakness and being willing to forgive someone who has hurt us.  Charity is expecting the best of each other”– Elder Marvin J Ashton

Sometimes in both your personal life and in society, the breakthrough comes in the breakdown.

Grace connects to courage at the breaking point

When you are tested to the breaking point, grace helps you to bend.  To be flexible.  To consider what is happening.

With peace in your heart dissipate the clouds of darkness and bring your heart back into the light.  When you are in the depths of negative emotions, you make assumptions based on limited information.  It is so common to put the worst viewpoint, to what is happening.

If you can instead seek deeper communications to fully understand what is happening, you will find that the light of reason almost always discovers a way to rise above the disaster.  Transcend the challenges by listening to your heart and soul.  You are the one that you have been searching for.

“I understood myself only after I destroyed myself.  And only in the process of fixing myself, did I know who I really was” –  Sade Andria Zabala

So let go of things, thoughts, attitudes, and feelings that don’t serve you.  The moment that you accept yourself fully as you are, is when the real journey begins.

You are at that moment delivered into your own beauty and power.

It is in the unfolding of life as we are supposed to be living it that our hearts truly open.

Remember, we are here to support you in whatever way we can.