Take The Time To Listen To The Souls Dreams

Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone, to experience, appreciate, and love yourself – Robert Tew

I have a confession to make.  Years ago, when all four of my children were little, I used to hide in the bathroom.  Sometimes the mommy, mommy, was just too much.  I didn’t want to referee who had what toy, who pushed who, or be the mean mom making them clean up their room.

I was tired out from working all day, coming home and fixing dinner, making sure their homework was done, that they all had their baths, and had clean clothes for the next day at school.  I just needed five minutes alone.

If your kids are like mine were, you didn’t get the five minutes alone until they were in bed, and after the 15th excuse to get out of bed, they had finally fallen asleep.

By then of course, you are too tired to even think, and you are falling asleep on the couch.  Just a few minutes of peace.

My husband was a wonderful man who in the summer would take the kids on overnight camping trips.  For one whole weekend, I would stay at home alone.  I slept in.  I read a book.  I would wallow in alone time and recharge.  It was a mini mommy vacation.  When they came home Sunday night all excited about fishing, I was a whole new mom, ready to listen to every story and adventure.

If you really love someone, there’s no such thing as not having enough time for them – unknown

For some reason now that the kids are all grown and out on their own, I have filled my life up with so many things to do.  It took a while to notice that I have let the habit of alone time disappear.  I am following my own advice and putting this time down on the calendar.

It is really important to carve out the space to be able to soul search.  To recover energetically. To be able to do some deep thinking, following the rabbit down the rabbit hole.  To just be without any agenda or schedule or purpose.  It is a part of having a healthy relationship with yourself.  It is a part of loving yourself and making time for just you.

• So, when you carve out some alone time, what do you do with it?
• How much time each month do you carve out to play?
• Try something new that you have never done before?
• If you were to go exploring in your neighborhood or your town, what would you do?
• When was the last time that you sat down and created something just for fun?
• Painting, drawing, sculpting, gardening, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, writing a story or a poem, sewing – whatever direction your creative juices take you.

Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own – Oprah

I love to garden, to crochet, and I have always wanted to play the piano.  I want to go on a hot air balloon ride.  I want to travel to Scotland and see where my dad’s family came from.  I want to explore medieval castles all over Europe.

I have been neglecting this part of my life because of not balancing myself between my day job, taking care of my husband and his health issues, being there for the grandchildren, and the amount of time it takes to promote and build LemonadeMakers.   The “I should be’s” overwhelm the “I want to’s“.

But what I know from life experience and lots of years of education, is that it is just as important to take the time to recharge my batteries.

So, like the sailor in the ship, you need to make course adjustments, to make sure that you don’t keep losing yourself in life’s often conflicting priorities.

Remember to take those moments, or those weekends to smell the roses.  You will come back reenergized and ready to take on whatever life is getting ready to throw in your direction.

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

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

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

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

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

 – African Proverb

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

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

 – Theodore Roosevelt

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

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

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

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

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

Unknown

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

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

How big is your purpose?

 

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

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

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

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

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

A person can say what they believe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your purpose is as simple as loving others,

and

as complicated as how do you reach out without fear

and

bring that love into reality?

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Set Your Life On Fire

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

The smallest spark ignites the fire of passion that lives deep within your soul.  When that passion bursts out, then anything is suddenly possible.  That passion says that you will not give up.  That you might get knocked down, but you will get back up.  That you might fail, but you will keep trying until you succeed.

It is in the trying, failing and trying again that you learn just what you are made up of.  It strips away the facades that you hide behind.  It exposes the bones of what you are made up of.

The fires don’t burn the true you,

only the parts that are not you.

The Cherokees teach that your ancient ancestors came from the stars.  Science has proven that your body contains stardust.  Like the stars you burn with an inner fire.

Your eyes, the windows of your soul, shine with that inner fire.  It is that inner focus that drives you forward.  That inner fire is like a forge, in that it will burn away all of the things that don’t belong, leaving the pure beauty of your soul’s core.

Focus is like a bellows, which supplies air to the fire so that it breathes.  That hot air rises to push you up out of the ashes.  It is in that place inside your heart, deep within the soul where joy burns away the pain.  Life isn’t ever what you thought it was.  It is in fact, all about what it is possible to become.  What you are truly capable of being.

“What you want to ignite in others must first burn inside yourself” – One PlanetOnePlanet.com

If you have ever heated your home with a wood fire, then you know the importance of banking the coals at night.  When you do that, then in the morning it is easy to get the fire going quickly.  You need to bank your inner fires when you are being hard pressed.  When you are going through the valley of death and darkness.  If you keep the inner core burning brightly, it doesn’t matter what happens outside of you.

• The burning embers of your dreams will burst into flames.
• You will rise up again.
• You shall escape the darkness.

You shall rise, lighting the way out of the darkness with a brightly burning all consuming passion, to change yourself and thereby change the world.

What matters most is your own self confidence.  Your own beliefs.  Your own self love and self-trust.  Because when the bridges are burning, sometimes that only way out is through.  When you have to walk down that road of fire, you are only going to be able to do it if you believe you can.

Sometimes in order to rise higher, you need to burn the boats containing plans B – Z and realize that plan A is the only option.   You have to be all in.  You have to surround yourself with those who will not be afraid of the changes you are going through, because they are transforming themselves.  People who will believe in your dreams and will fan the flames of your fire.  The chain reaction of one heart on fire lighting another, and another until there is light for all.

“You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage – pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically – to say “no” to other things.  And the way to do that is by having a bigger “Yes” burning inside” – Stephen Covey

Seek that path that demands more from you than you currently know how to give.  Motivation comes from that fire within us, an awakened soul.

Be fearless

in seeking your transformation

You have the capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love, and to be greater than all of your hopes, desires, dreams and inspirations.

Be Brave – Entertain The Uncomfortable And Shoot For The Stars

The Three C’s of Life:

Choices, Chances, Changes.

You must make a Choice to take a Chance or your life will never Change.

 – Zig Ziglar

They say that everything you have ever wanted is one step outside of your comfort zone.  If you are around my age, you may remember the day that the astronauts landed on the moon and took the first step onto the moons surface.  Everyone around the world that had access to a T.V. was watching.  No one said a word as they watched, holding their breath.  Then again, when the astronauts came back home and safely splashed into the water.  It was an amazing time, because something had happened, that couldn’t be believed.  They went to the moon, they walked on it and brought back space rocks.  They made it back safe and a boundary was forever broken that most of us believed wasn’t possible.  Sometimes I think that the one step outside your comfort zone is just like that first step onto the moons surface.  Because that first step in the direction of our dreams is soooo very hard to do.  It sometimes feels like we might not make it back alive, when we take that step.

You don’t get over the fear of doing something by not doing it.

 – Zero Dean

Stepping outside that circle begins with a vision.  Look at the stars colored into the lines.  Those are all of your dreams that you have been given to go out and bring into reality.  Each star is like the rest stop on a long road trip.  A safe place to stop and take a nap if you need it.  A place to refresh yourself as you get ready to get back on the freeway and travel to the next stop along your destination.  A place where they have a map that says, “you are here” and marks out places that you can go explore.  Some of them are located at landmarks, and some at scenic views.  You can meet people from other states.  You can talk to truck drivers who go from one side of the United States to the other, transporting everything that we have in our homes to the marketplace.  Step out onto to your first star.  Move from where you are, to where you need to be.

We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong.

 – Unknown

Did you know that in order to write a single sentence, we need to have the ability to see the sentence in our minds?  That is how we start out when as a young child we start writing out sentences. Along the way, we do this by habit.  We begin with a vision.  Then we start building bridges along each step of the way.  We start coloring in the stars as far as we can reach.  And one day it happens, that in order to color in the next star, we have to take a step into the vision itself.  You will have to leave the place where you are in order to continue to give birth to the vision. It will mean that you feel lost, uncomfortable and awkward.  It will mean that you fail, not once or twice, but many times.  But once you get the hang of it, your life will change in the most amazing ways.

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

 – Christopher Columbus

At some point we have to light our fire, our passion to overcome the fear of taking the step.  We have to want it more than we are afraid of it.  The greater the fear, the greater the growth.  If you have kids, you will have witnessed growth spurts.  I remember when my boys were little.  I always knew when a growth spurt was coming because they consumed food like they were vacuum cleaners and they would sleep longer.  Then practically overnight, I had to buy new clothes and shoes because nothing fit.  There is discomfort when we grow at first because everything that fit us yesterday, doesn’t fit us today.  But when we give it a little time and space, we grow comfortable again with a new favorite pair of favorite jeans or shoes.  We can’t let fears rule over us and make us afraid to walk into our future selves.  That is where the joy and adventure are waiting for us.  The “Stars” are calling us, we just have to take the call.

The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

 – Steven Pressfield

Courage is the realization that this fear of leaving the comfort zone is just a place marker.  It marks the place where you are about to do something that will shift your life into a totally new place.  Do you remember the first time that you moved?  If you were a kid, it meant a new neighborhood.  New friends.  New school.  Maybe the move was to go to college and you left your family behind to go to school in another state.  Or maybe your first move was out of state for a new job.   All very scary “new” things.  But kind of exciting too.   Because you didn’t have any idea who your new friends were going to be; who your new teachers would be; what your new home would look like.  You said goodbye to a lot of things, and at the same time you got to say hello to some new things.  The fears that we imagine are just there to let us know that something wonderful is coming our way.

If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.

 – John Maxwell

Outside of that circle is where life really happens.  It is where the magic is – that is why the stars are there to guide us.  It is where we get to create our own life.  We can decide and choose who and what we want to become.  Keep walking, maybe even running sometimes to the destiny that you have been given.  Hold to your vision and don’t let anyone or anything keep you from it.  Trust in the process, remember to breathe, and if you haven’t got uncomfortable, then you haven’t left your comfort zone.  Your fears can be pretty tricky, and they will make it seem like you stepped out of the circle and onto one of the stars.  But do a gut check – no butterflies, no giddiness, no feeling of “What Did I Just Do” and you better check to see where those toes really landed.

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

 – Les Brown

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Life Is A Journey Of Discovering New Possibilities

Whatever happens,

Wherever you go,

Whatever you do,

Remember this;

No one can take the Fire out of your soul,

the Stars from your eyes,

the Passion in your heart.

Those are yours forever.

 – S.L.

Do you remember that famous line from “The Wizard of Oz”?  Almost at the end, Glinda the Good Witch says, “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas”, then the Scarecrow asked why she didn’t say anything at the beginning of the journey?  And Glinda replies, “She had to learn it for herself.”  The same thing is true for each of us.

“Have faith in your journey.  Everything had to happen exactly as it did to get you where you’re going next” – Mandy Hale

I love the thought of curiosity in our travels.  Around the next corner, you never know what might be waiting for you.  Your focus will reflect what pops out at you.  You will notice the sun shining brightly, or the clouds coming to cover it up.  You will see rainbows or the coming thunder storm.  It is all a matter of the filters that you are viewing your life from.  Each experience adds up to who we are at this very moment.  And each moment, presents change and a new you.  Who are you becoming, as you journey down the road of life?

“The journey between what you once were and who are you now becoming is where the dance of life really takes place” – Barbara DeAngelis

When you have some specific goals in mind, time seems to be so slow.  You feel like you’re wading through the mud, with each step taking so much effort.  Stepping down into the mud, feeling the cold water flooding inside your boots.  Even your toes are struggling to get a grip on the sole of the boot, as you’re trying to lift your foot out of the mud to take the next step.  Fighting against the boot as it remains stuck in the mud. You tug at your boot.  Finally getting it loose you struggle with the weight of the mud that is still attached to the boot.  You keep trying not to lose your balance and do a face plant into the mud.  It takes forever just to take a few steps in the right direction.

Have you ever felt that way?  Your have to remind yourself that each experience in your life, has been right on time.  Your are never late according the divine destiny.  Each step, and each situation that showed up at your door step right on time.  Right now you may be experiencing sickness, a job loss, work furlough, stress around your financial future, worried about putting food on the table.  That would be you stuck in the mud.  It’s hard to tell where to take the next step.

“I am learning to trust the journey even when I do not understand it” – Mile Bron

Each obstacle that you encounter, every mountain that you climb and then hike back down again, strengthens your muscles.  Some of the muscles are physical, some mental, and some are spiritual.  Learning to pace yourself so that you don’t get injured or tired and quit.  Learning about the importance of not getting caught in the mind whirlpool of indecision.  Learning that even when you think that you’re abandoned by God, you are in fact always being supported.  The breakdown teaches you so much about yourself.  You are stronger than you will ever know.  No matter what is falling apart in your life this minute, you can conquer anything and anyone.

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

It is also important to take the time to give thanks to every single person that has been a part of your life’s journey so far.  The wisdom of the mentors in your life.  The love of family.  The blessing of friends, who are only a text, IM or phone call away.  You can Skype girlfriends from around the world, and see their faces and feel in your soul how much they care and support you.  Remind yourself to stop feeling that world is passing you by.  Enjoy the journey.  If you have a habit of getting so involved in planning, in working, in taking action, that you spend all your time “doing” – push the pause button and take time to just “be”.  To remember that joy and happiness are found within the journey itself, not as a reward for reaching a new destination.

“I am deeply reminded that our life’s journey is a gift, not a given, and that we can never truly know how long the journey will last.  All we can do is decide how it unfolds” – Sonia Choquette

The best part of the journey to self discovery, is that it really never ends.  Because each time you reach a destination, the new you that it took to get there, looks around and says, “Where are we going to go now?”  The journey has way-stops or check points along the way, but each destination opens doors.  Doors to new places to go to, new ways you grow into.  Sometimes going around the corner to a new destination, is simply learning to look at familiar things with new eyes.  The thing that I know for certain, is that the journey is never over.  Even when you leave this life, you will still be on a journey.

 “You are not on a journey to God; you are on a journey with God” – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Don’t Be The Missing Piece In The Divine Puzzle

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

Love Is The Master Key To Happiness

Love yourself.  Forgive yourself.  Be true to yourself.  How you treat yourself sets the standard for how others treat you.

  – Steve Maraboli

Years ago I worked for a mortgage company in the Seattle, WA area.  When I interviewed for a loan processor position, the branch manager told me that I shouldn’t take the job if swearing bothered me, as everyone in her office swore.  I am good at tuning out what I don’t want to hear, so I went ahead and accepted the position. 

I had been on the job just a month or two when one of the other employees in the branch came up to me with a question.  She wanted to know what I had said to everyone that made them not swear when I was part of the conversation.  I told her that I hadn’t even realized that they didn’t swear when they spoke to me, and that I hadn’t told them anything.  She wanted to know why they were treating her different than they treated me.  I told her something like the above quote.  We subconsciously tell people how to treat us.  If she wasn’t being treated how she wanted to be, then she needed to look inside of herself to determine what needed to be changed.

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.

  – Unknown

I think that the hardest part about giving and receiving love is that it puts us at risk of being hurt.  We worry about whether this new being in our lives will hurt us, if we open our hearts up to giving and receiving love. 

Faith ends where worry begins, and worry ends where faith begins.

  –  George Mueller

My father (stepfather) married my mother, and took on six girls ranging in ages from newborn to 9 yrs old (I was the 9 yr old).  Not one time in over 49 yrs has the word “stepdaughter” ever come out of his mouth.  Every time it has been “my daughter”.  My parents went on to have one more child, my brother, who is my dads only “blood” child.  My brother and my dad have a rocky relationship.  What so many of us had a hard time with, is that we want people to behave in a certain way.  We want a mother, father, spouse, brother or sister, to say or do certain things, and when they fall short of our expectations, we create trauma around it. 

When you love someone, you love the whole person just as he or she is, and not as you would like them to be.

  –  Leo Tolstoy

My mom passed away over 20 yrs ago, and our dad has been living with my husband and I for the past 11 years.  A couple of years ago, my brother and I had a long talk about his dad, and why I maintained our relationship after our mother died. With those that we love in our lives, our close friends and relatives, it can be easy to look at their faults.  To see all of the “dirt” in their lives.  Those faults pop up like neon lights blinking and blinking, “look here”, but there are also hidden nuggets of gold laying alongside each fault line.

None of us can be the perfect parent, son, daughter, sister, brother, or spouse.  It has meant a lot to me that “step” never came before daughter.  He has other well hidden (LOL) nuggets of gold, and he has his share of dirt, just like every one of us.  We need to adjust our “glasses” to see others through the filters of gold, instead of just neon signs of dirt. 

At the same time, we can’t live our own lives trying to live up to the expectations of others. 

Stop seeing yourself through the eyes of others.  You will never be able to live up to their expectations, and it will leave you feeling broken and insecure… Rather see yourself as the beautiful soul God made you to be, and know he made you to do great things.

  –  Karen Kastyla

Have your ever looked at yourself through the “fun house” mirrors at a fair?  They distort your shape, making you tall, small, thin, fat.  Some of them distort just a portion of your body and others the entire body.  When we try to live our lives for others, we distort ourselves creating a fun house mirror – we don’t see us, we just see the distortion. 

This is your own journey.  Don’t let others define it for you.  You shape the path of your journey through your effort, hard work, love, aspirations, dreams and always your pure intention.

  –  Abira Mukherjee

When I look at this photo, I see love on both the mans and the cats faces.  The cat doesn’t expect the man to act like another cat.  The man doesn’t expect the cat to be a dog.  They see the nuggets of gold in each other.  Their love is apparent.  They may not live up to 100% of the expectations.  And that failure to live up to expectations, doesn’t mean that they damn up their love behind a concrete barrier, demanding that the other behave a certain way. 

I know that my cats expect breakfast each morning the minute my feet hit the bedroom floor.  Since during the week I get up at 5 AM, on Saturday, Sunday, and any holidays, they still expect breakfast at 5 AM.  They seem to live with the disappointment (although they can be quite demanding and noisy about it – LOL).   They still rub up against me purring.  They still hop in my lap and try to type on the keyboard when I am busy.  I still pet them, feed them, and cuddle them.  I know that I will have to remove at least one cat every time I sit down at the keyboard to compose one of these posts.  I accept their need to interrupt me when I am not paying them enough attention, and they accept that I am eventually going to shut them out of the office so I can finish my post without kitty paws typing. (I blame all spelling errors on my cats!).

In the end nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.

  –  Daphne Rose Kingma

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I Can Because I Am Limitless. I Am Because I Know No Boundaries

Have you ever had a healing crisis? A healing crisis isn’t just a health related crisis. It can be healing any part of our life that just isn’t working out the way we know that it should.

Nothing has transformed my life more than listening to what needed to be heard.

  – Jeffrey Shaw 

Years ago, when I was first working in the financial industry I had just received a huge promotion. I was really working hard, and for some reason, the different aspects of the job were just not working out right. I finally had a long talk with my boss, and following her advice I turned things around. I knew that I was perfectly capable of doing the job, but I just couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t working. I think that at different shifting points in our lives we run up against this road block. We need a different set of eyes to see what needs to be seen. To see what needs to be transformed.

If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks.  I’ve had them; everybody has had them.  But obstacles don’t  have to stop you.  If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up.  Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.

  – Michael Jordan

Do you know why Michael Jordan was so successful?  This quote gives us a clue.  He didn’t reach a roadblock and say, “oh well, I guess I am not talented enough to do this”; or “oh well, I guess this dream was just too big for me to accomplish”.  No, he practiced until he was able to break it down.   He worked with coaches who were able to help him see what he couldn’t see.

Remember that your greatest talent is so much more powerful than your biggest fear.

  – Unknown

There comes a time when we need to take a calculated risk. If you look at the game of baseball it really speaks to calculated risk. The player who is on first base, will watch the pitcher, the batter, and outfielders to gauge how far off the base he can go without getting caught. If he gauges it correctly, he can steal a base, or even make it to 3rd base with an infield hit from the batter because of getting the head start.

I think sometimes you forget that you were born to be awesome.  (here’s your reminder)

  – Unknown

In our lives, if we risk nothing, we get nothing. In personal transformation, we need to take calculated risks. In our life of personal growth, in order to grow we have to take our foot off the safe “base” we are on. We need to risk opening the chrysalis with the hope that we have finished our transformation, and the wings are ready to fly.

Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.

   – Ronnie Max Oldham

This really is the only way to live your life. Not putting off things until we think it is safe. Really opening our hearts completely in how we care about others. To understand that the reality is that almost anything is possible. Whatever is currently stumping you, just means that you are not asking the right questions, or the right people for help.

Our thoughts are very powerful. When we focus on what we lack, we create blockages and limitations. We become imprisoned by the vibration of our negative energy.

  – Randi G Fine

In other words if we think that we can’t we will be a self fulfilling prophecy.

If you think you can or you think you can’t you are right.

  – Henry Ford

I find myself doing this sometimes. I stress about not having enough time and sure enough, unforeseen stuff starts filling up my life. Then I catch myself, and unlock the door to that cage, freeing myself and all of a sudden, the stuff just starts going away and I have my time back to do what needs to be done.

Remember, the moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.

  – Hal Elrod

So if you find yourself in any sort of “healing crisis” at the moment, just take some time to meditate as to how you just lost yourself in the woods. Transform the path by backing up or regrouping. Get back on the path that you were traveling.

And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive.  You won’t even be sure whether the storm is really over.  But one thing is certain.  When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.  That’s what the storm’s all about.

  – Haruki Murakami

This is another critical piece of the transformation puzzle, in really getting to know oneself. 

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Believe In Your Potential For Greatness, It Is Your Gift To The World

Do you believe that you are destined for greatness? It took me quite a bit of time to believe that about myself. Compliments have always been hard for me to accept. It always felt like I wasn’t truly worthy. Like you were just being nice to me, but didn’t really mean it.

It is safe to feel like you are an “ok” type of person, but greatness feels like I am being mistaken for someone else. It carries with it the undertone of responsibility, and the potential of being weighed and found wanting. It has the danger of being found to be a fraud, not being as advertised.  That there are those waiting for the mistake so that they can pounce on it and say, “I knew she wasn’t that great.”

There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:  The fear of failure.

  – Paulo Coelho

I’ve always accepted the compliment that I was “smart”, because I worked hard for the good grades. Writing about things that I have experienced in my life, and what I have learned about life is really easy. Not that I don’t spend time putting these posts together, because I do. It can take hours sometimes, but it isn’t the “chore” that it is for so many people. It is a gift that just flows. So because of that, it is harder to accept the compliments, because it doesn’t feel like I have earned them with hard work.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

  – Marianne Williamson

At some point in our life, we say “enough” to the doubter voice inside of us. That voice that says we have to make ourselves small so that we are not noticed; that voice that whispers no one else feels or thinks like we do, so don’t voice your opinions or let anyone know how you think or feel (you don’t want to be the outcast).

The fears that we don’t face becomes our limits.

  – Robin Sharma

Then there is the distraction button that gets pulled every time you sit down to figure out your destiny. It convinces you to clean up something – the kitchen floors need to be mopped. To watch that TV show, after all you deserve to sit down and relax, you worked hard all day. The phone rings and it is that friend or relative that talks for hours about nothing. Or you get attacked by the shiny objects that glistens and gleams until you pay attention to it, or as my dog used to say “squirrel!”.

If an egg is broken from the outside, life ends. If an egg is broken from the inside, life begins. Greats things always begin from the inside.

  –  Unknown

How do we begin from the inside to crack that shell of protection that we have built around ourselves?

Instead of being distracted, we can instead begin the conversation with the doubter to bring them in to support us. That is when we are ready to ascend another level in our consciousness. We are ready and because of that, doors appear and begin to open to us. We are ready once again to enter into the chrysalis and transform from our current being into a new one.

This advancement is transforming us from being a crawler towards our dreams and life purpose, into a flier. We are transforming from following a leader, to becoming a leader. We strike out on fulfilling our life purpose through the work that we are doing.

Set a goal so big you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can.

  – Unknown

We are beginning the path to greatness, with the spiritual joy of choosing our own adventure. Did you ever read the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books as a kid, or to your kids? Each chapter gave you choices as to where you would go next. We become co-creators of our life path, designing the way our divine purpose is fulfilled in the world.

I am not here to change the world.  I am changing the world because I am here.

  – Lisa Wilson

We are free not only to dream of a better life, we are free to “make it so”. Like a phoenix, we die to our old way of living by hiding you we are. We are reborn as we rise from the ashes, a newly made creation that passes through the gates of greatness.

Living by faith includes the call to something greater than cowardly self preservation.

  – J.R.R. Tolkien

As we leave the chrysalis, we leave behind all of the old stories. We are vulnerable, because we are opening ourselves up to take new risks – which means we don’t know the answers anymore. This landscape is completely new.

Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz we will have adventures. Some of them will be scary. We might end up asleep again in the field of poppies. We might have adversity chasing after us like the flying monkeys. We might discover that the people we thought would have all of the answers don’t. We might even discover the truth, that the one with the answers lives inside of our hearts and has been directing us the entire journey.

We have greatness within us; innovative, giving, determined.  It’s time for the best in us to come out.

  – Unknown

We begin to see our own unrealized potential. Becoming both awake and aware, we learn how to discern the correct paths to take, the best actions to make. We learn to raise our vibrational energy to attract what we need in our lives. We learn the secrets of manifestation. We understand for the first time, the truth of how we can design our own life. That we really do have that kind of power.

It is not the strength of the body that counts, but the strength of the spirit.

  – J.R.R. Tolkien

Magic comes into our lives because we are listening to the voice of the divine. Even before we can voice what we need, the door opens and there is exactly what we just realized we need. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be mesmerized by the voices calling out in fear. It doesn’t mean that we won’t be distracted or derailed again and again. But because we have awakened and become more aware, we recognize them for what they are sooner, and they delay us less and less. We recover faster.

The truth about you is that you are easily capable of greatness.

  – Fabienne Fredrickson

It is time for each of us to recognize our divine gifts. To answer the calling to greatness. To summon the abilities, we each have within us. It is time to rise up and live a life that is on purpose. To live a passionate life. To answer the call, instead of putting it on hold or pressing the mute button. It is time to stretch ourselves. To push the internal boundaries. To leap up and be true to who we really are.

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Don’t Wait, Do It Now

Hopefully I am not the only one that this happens to.  On my commute to work and back to home, my brain is so busy detailing everything I have to do – both at work and at home.  The minute I step into my office or my home, that list magically hides itself.  I forgot most of what I have to do, being busy doing so many other things.  Then the minute my head hits the pillow, the list reappears as a list of everything that I didn’t get done.  Does anyone else go through this?

Why is taking action so hard?  We have these dreams, passions around our life.  The space between a dream and reality is where all of the action has to take place.  We want whatever the dream is.  We talk about it all of the time.  “Don’t wait for your feelings to change to take the action.  Take the actions and your feelings will change”  Barbara Baron. 

We tend to put off the hard parts.  The parts where we aren’t sure what to do.  I do it everyday.  Put off the conversation I don’t want to have with a friend, relative or co-worker.  Put off studying for a test because I am afraid of failing it.  Not asking for what I want, because what if they say no?  I am sure that this list could go on forever.  The key is to just take a first step, then one more.  Don’t look at the whole mountain that needs to be climbed, just look at the next few steps.

I always think about physical workouts here.  If you are on a treadmill, and your goal is five miles.  You start to get worn out and out of breath on mile three.  Those next two miles seems like impossible.  Seems like forever.  Seems like Mount Everest.  Seems like you can’t do it.  But here is where a little stubbornness comes in handy.  You just tell yourself five more minutes, and you take the next step and the next step, and before you know it, that fifth mile is done.  Be proud of every next step, not just the one that puts you over the goal.

“We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”  Aristotle.  It is important that these lists are not just a grocery list or a laundry list.  Things that take up time and space, but are not really taking a step.  That is the first step of procrastination.  What I call the shiny object or squirrel.  Have you seen the cartoon, where the dog is doing or saying something, then shouts squirrel and takes off right in the middle of it?  That is a squirrel.  I come into my office to write this blog post.  Then I see some mail that I forgot to take care of yesterday and so I do that.  Then an email comes in, so I read that.  Then I think of something I wanted to research and I do that.  Two hours later, I haven’t written a single word of the post I came in to write.  That is chasing the squirrel.  I didn’t really take a single step toward writing that post, and now my time is gone.

The best that we can do is to promise ourselves to be better and do better.  The best that we can do is to keep trying, putting one foot in front of the other.  To ask ourselves, what is the most important thing I can do right this moment to take that next step, and then just take it.  Don’t wait for permission.  Don’t wait for the perfect moment.  Don’t wait for anything, just take that next step.  We might fall down.  We might get hurt or do what we later judge to be the wrong thing.  It doesn’t in the big picture matter.  What matters is that we took what we saw to be the next step.  The funny thing about life, is that those steps that we judged to be wrong, are usually the steps that give us what we need for a future step.  So that, in the long run, none of the steps were really wrong.

“I promise myself,

To be so strong that nothing can disturb my peace of mind.

To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person I meet.

To make all my friends feel that there is something worthwhile in them.

To look at the sunny side of everything and make my optimism come true.

To think only of the best, to work only for the best and to expect only the best.

To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as I am about my own.

To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.

To give so much time to improving myself that I have no time to criticize others.

To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of myself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words, but in great deeds.

To live in the faith that the whole world is on my side, so long as I am true to the best that is in me”

Christian D. Larson