To All Of The Dreamers

 

“Set a goal so big, that you can’t achieve it until you grow into the person who can” – Unknown

I don’t think that the importance of big dreams can be over emphasized.  When you were a small child, you believed that you could do anything, because your mom and dad said so.  Then as you grew older, you would try things and fail.  Because it doesn’t feel good to fail, you started putting limits on what you could do.

So, now as an adult when you set goals to bring a dream into reality, you typically made it something that you felt comfortable could be achieved.  It stays inside of the comfort zone.  Which defeats the purpose of the dream before you even get started.

“It is the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting” – Paulo Coelho

You have to trust in divine destiny.  In the fact that you have a purpose in being here at this moment in time.  That if it has been planted in your heart and soul, then it is yours to do.  It is a different kind of trust than you are used to.  You think that trust is something that is earned by how you behave and act.

This kind of trust though is different because it is not based on past actions.  It is based on your being willing to accept the risk.  No guarantees.  Not because it is safe or certain that this is the right way to fulfill that life purpose or destiny.  It could in fact be the failure that turns you to a completely different path, that leads to that destiny or life purpose.  The trust is that no matter what happens it will serve you.

Your dreams need to be bigger than your fears, because that is how they grow you.  If you don’t have faith in your ability to do something, or be something that you have never been or done, then there’s really nothing to believe in.  This is because you will just go through life doing things you know you can do.  And that is not accomplishing any dreams.

Unless you can imagine your dreams of doing something totally outside of your comfort zone coming true, they can’t get a purchase in your reality. Remember that you grow with your dreams, so they need to feel impossible in order to grow you. So, reach for the stars and change not only your world, but the world around you.

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

Think of the Wright Brothers and the airplane.  Think of President Kennedy and the “Moon Shot”.  Think of Roger Bannister who had been told that if he actually ran a four-minute mile he would die in the attempt.  Think of Felix Baumgartner who jumped to the earth from a helium balloon in the stratosphere.  He actually broke the sound barrier with his body he was coming down so fast.

All of these people did amazing things because they got out of their comfort zones.  Because they were willing to bust through their fear of failure and dare greatly to accomplish a dream.  A dream so powerful that no one believed it could actually be done.  So how did they do it?  What is their secret?

This means a couple of things have to happen.  You have to put action to the things you want to accomplish.  Your faith has to be stronger than the negative mind talk that is going to try and drown out those actions, into never getting off the ground.  Dreams are life realities waiting for you to make them come true.

• If you don’t feel scared.,
• If you don’t think that your dreams are impossible,
• If you don’t feel like quitting almost every day,

then your dreams aren’t big enough.

“Life is tough, my darling. But so are you” – Stephanie Bennett Henry

So, laugh a lot and realize how truly blessed life can be when you are dancing after your dreams.  It is what the answer is to feeling stuck, bored, and unhappy.  You just need to birth a new dream in your life.

So DARE TO FAIL and WAKE UP and LIVE!

It is reaching into your creative mind saying “I wonder if” to yourself as you think about what your logical mind has said is impossible.  Then you catch a whisp of an idea, that leads you down the rabbit hole.  There is a possibility here you say.  It will probably fail.  But if it did work, then wouldn’t that be wonderful?  And before you know it, it’s become inevitable that it is going to work!

“Some of us let those great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true” – W Wilson

Your Real Strength Is In Your Greatest Weakness

Every great dream begins with a dreamer.  You have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world – Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman certainly walked her talk.  She escaped slavery going to the North.  But she didn’t stay there.  Instead, she made 13 missions to rescue other slaves using the Underground Railroad.  She rescued over 70 families.

When the Civil War broke out, she worked as a scout and spy.  One of the raids that she was part of saved 700 slaves.  She is such a great example of not letting anyone break her soul.  She not only stood firm for her beliefs, but helped hundreds escape slavery.

Harriet had dreams and trusted her intuition.  There are stories of how she would lead the slaves down different paths, because her dreams told her the normal way was not safe, and she was right every time.

We all have had hard times come upon us.  Times when you feel hopeless and helpless, that you cannot take another step.  Days when you feel that the whole world is against you.  Times of loss, of betrayal.  A death in the family, a divorce, a loss of income and status.

People are like stained glass windows.  They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within – Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

It is in these times that you have the choice of your greatest pain becoming your greatest source of strength.  In that moment of surrender, you find the spark to go on.

Derek Rydell tells a story of how he was diving in a coral reef in his book “Emergence”.  Not paying attention, he found himself trapped in a coral bed of fire coral.  Fire coral is poisonous.  Try as he might, he couldn’t see the way out.

He talks about the conversation in his head.  First, he was pleading with God to save his life.  It was let’s make a deal.  Then his imagination was running wild on being found dead from the poison of the coral.  What his friends and relatives would say at his funeral and so on.

Finally, exhausted and seeing the sand sharks swimming towards him in the coral he accepted that he was going to die.  At this moment of complete surrender, no longer fighting, a huge wave came through the coral and swept him up on the only piece of coral that was safe.  He was able to stand and see the only pathway safely out of the coral and return to shore.

This was his moment of waking up.  This was his moment of divine consciousness coming both from within and into him.  It was his “Kairos” moment.  The definition of Kairos is the perfect, delicate, crucial moment, that fleeting rightness of time and place that creates the opportunity for action, words, or movement.

In that space of complete surrender, something inside of him finally released who and what he came to earth to be.  He realized his purpose, his divine mission in life.

When Derek stood up on the one safe place, he was standing in God’s time.  He was outside of time.  For that one moment he was completely in the present moment.  He wasn’t seeing his death in the future.  He wasn’t full of regrets for things he did or didn’t do in his past.  He was in a “Kairos moment”, a time when God takes action moment.  Kairos takes you through time because you are standing outside of linear time.

Now it took time to integrate everything that came to him at that moment, but it was the moment that transformed him completely.  He had to seize that moment, in order to save his life.

Difficult times that challenge you are not meant to destroy you.  They are meant to wake you up to your life’s purpose.  It is up to you to accept it or deny it.

When you accept it, you find strength in overcoming the trial.  You have a clear purpose.

It doesn’t mean that you find an easy life.  It means that you realize why you are here, and you start learning how to accomplish it.

The most important thing in your life is not what you do; it’s who you become.  That’s what you will take into eternity.  You are unceasing spiritual beings with an eternal destiny on God’s great universe – Dallas Willard

Those who refuse to accept their destiny, choose to remain asleep in life.  They become bitter, negative souls, hopeless against life’s challenges.

Like the butterfly whose chrysalis gets opened from an outside source, their wings are weak and not capable of flight.

It is in the struggle to break out of the chrysalis, that the butterfly’s wings grow the strength to take flight.

Discover the path that you are meant to walk.  Celebrate the miles you have come and keep going. Believe in yourself and see yourself as the wonderful inspiring person you really are becoming.

Hello Beautiful!

We tend to live our lives based on what we believe about ourselves, our world, our capabilities and our limits.  Where do those beliefs come from?  More often than not they come from what other people have told us, history, science, religion, culture, family.  What if they’re wrong? – Gregg Braden

Growing up in my family we were assigned these roles.  I was the smart one.  My younger sister was the pretty one.  The Twins were just the twins – mirror images in looks but opposites in actions.  My fourth sister was blond and so different.  My youngest sister was the pest, and my baby brother was the spoiled boy.  I went through most of my life believing that I couldn’t be both pretty and smart – it was one or the other, so because I was smart according to everyone else, I couldn’t possibly be pretty too.

Since I also had the belief that it wasn’t safe to be seen, I didn’t mind not being pretty.

It is interesting how I have always reacted to compliments that are not about my being smart.  If someone comments on my photo for example it makes me uncomfortable because it went against an unconscious belief from my childhood.  I always felt like they were not being honest, they were just being nice.

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future – Deepak Chopra

It is kind of funny, but Facebook has actually helped me to release most of this belief.  It has happened in a strange way, because a lot of men try to use Facebook to meet women.  I am sure that this has happened to most of you.  Complete strangers want to be your Facebook friend.  It never occurred to me that this would happen because they were interested in me, I thought it was because they read my posts and liked them.

So, when I would get personal messages that indicated what they were really after I was shocked.  Now while I now screen my friends’ invitations, it did help me to release this belief.  These men and one woman (lol) didn’t know me, so they weren’t just being “nice”.  They saw something that attracted them.

It is kind of funny how your perceptions can literally change things.  They did this study years ago they called Pygmalion in which they were going to give this class an IQ test.  The researchers told the teacher that 5 students who would perform the best.  The teacher wasn’t told that these 5 children were just randomly picked.

From the teacher’s perception these were the 5 brightest students.  The test confirmed that these 5 students were the best in the class.  The teacher’s viewpoint impacted those students.  Something in the way she taught, the feedback she gave, something she did, made those five students “smarter”.

What we are told as children, from our parents, our teachers, our friends and relatives – what the expectations are for our behavior – subconsciously they motivate us to make them true.  Whatever negative beliefs you have about you, you filter through life’s experiences to make them come true for you.  You get what you expect.

The mind and the body are like parallel universes.  Anything that happens in the mental universe must leave tracks in the physical one – Deepak Chopra

The great news is that once you recognize what these unconscious beliefs are, you can change them.  This morning I had to wait for the Microsoft upgrades to finish before I could finish this post.  Every month or so, your computer gets program upgrades.  In this same way, you have the ability to give yourself a program upgrade.  You can change your reality by changing your beliefs.  By creating new expectations.

When you heal damaging beliefs about yourself, you remove limitations which are restricting your personal growth.

If you feel like you are pushing the boulder up a hill about anything in your life right now, examine what your beliefs are around what you are trying to accomplish.  Realize that this belief is not true.  That it probably came from a childhood experience that you then spent every year since proving was true.  And now you have the opportunity to release that belief and upgrade to a new program or belief.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate – Carl Jung

It is amazing how everything changes when you do this.  It is like the hose was turned on full blast, but because you had a kink in the hose, you were only getting a drop or two at a time.  Releasing the false belief, unkinks the hose, and your life rushes forward in the direction you were trying to go.  That boulder you were pushing uphill turns into a sled sliding down the hill at top speed.

So, I encourage you to find one limiting belief you have, release it as a misunderstanding, and upgrade that belief into something that serves you.

When You Are Lost, You Finally Have The Chance To Find Yourself

As with a heavy fog on a road, what lies ahead on the path of life is never completely clear, but the choices we make can help shape out the shadows  – Bryson Staley

If you’re feeling frightened about what comes next, don’t be.  Embrace the uncertainty.  Allow it to lead you places.  Be brave as it challenges you to exercise both your heart and your mind as you create your own path toward happiness; don’t waste time with regret.  Spin wildly into your next action.  Enjoy the present, each moment as it comes, because you’ll never get another one quite like it.  And if you should ever look up and find yourself lost, simply take a breath and start over.  Retrace your steps and go back to the purest place in your heart . . .  where your hope lives.  You’ll find your way again  – Everwood

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves –  Henry David Thoreau

What Barriers To Love Are Inside Of Me?

Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” As I learned to love myself, my relationship with everyone changed. 

Loving myself lead to a clarity of my mind and heart. It gave me the courage to say “no more” hiding behind the masks. To say “no more” living in fear of what others will think of me. To say “yes” to me! The heavy armor I had built around me to protect me was in fact made of fear and stress. As I dropped it all behind me, I was left floating free in joy and freedom.  I learned that I must be the ultimate believer in myself first.

I knew in my bones why I was here on earth. I may not always be clear on what to do next, but I am clear as crystal as to where I am going. Clarity of mind is how you find purpose in life. It in turn is linked to clarity of passion, which is the fire of your soul to fulfill your purpose.

I believe that when we tear down the barriers we have built against loving ourselves, that we dispel the veils of illusion that obscure the direction of our life path. Love is an energy that engages us in life in a whole new way. Maya Angelou said, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

Life is about breaking our own limitations. It is about outgrowing who we were. It is about living our lives, by outgrowing ourselves over and over. It is about being curious and opening doors and finding new paths to explore.

Sending Love Wherever It Is Needed

We all have those days.  The days when nothing is seeming to go the way you planned.  That day when every mistake you made in the past year, shows up on your desk within 5 minutes of your sitting down.  Those days when you feel that the very idea of being able to control anything in your life, is life’s great joke on you.

“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once”  – Paulo Coelho

If you could see what was being hidden in each of our lives, I think that you would be more loving to one another.  There is a video that was done, where little thought bubbles come up as the camera goes down the halls and elevators in a hospital.    Someone is saying goodbye to their dying father.  One man was just told the tumor was benign, while another was told he has cancer.  An elderly woman with oxygen has been waiting for a heart transplant for 69 days.  An exhausted nurse is at the end of a 12 hour shift.  “

Those are the days when you need someone to hug you and say, “You are Good Enough.  You are Capable of Handling this.  You are Important.  You are more than Worthy.  You are LOVED.  You are NOT ALONE.”  These are the days that you need all of the light and love that the world can send you.  What you have to remember, is that at this very moment, someone in the world is either sending you that love, or is in need of you to send that love.

“Could a greater miracle take place, than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

It is when you are living your life from the place of passion and purpose, that you shine the brightest.  Knowing that your deepest dreams can be reached.  It is when you take that deep breath, and just let the emotions flow out of you, that you can reset yourself.  It is hard to be loving and empathetic when you are in survival mode.  You need to give yourself the oxygen mask, reset your emotions and then help others.  Find that spark inside of you, and let it shine first for you.  Then shine it for others to help them find theirs.

Recently driving into work, I was playing a CD with healing sounds.  A friend of mine knew that I have been having some health issues, and thought it might help.  So I purchased it and have been playing it all week.

I realized that every area in almost everyone’s life right now is undergoing some issues.  Work layoffs; health issues; injustices in life, and just watching the news can make you a  little stressed out about how everything is in a negative place right now.

Writing these posts and finding the “good news” articles and videos is what keeps my feet walking down my path of transformation.  It is keeping me sane.  It is why I write, and why I want to share what I find with all of the other LemonadeMakers out there.

“Remember . . .  the entrance to the sanctuary is within you”  – Rumi

Then you add in everything negative happening with the war in Ukraine, fighting in politics between the parties, terrorists’ attacks; the workplace and school shootings, countries at war within their own borders, or threatening to make war on other countries – it can all feel overwhelming.

None of these problems have easy solutions.  I think that we are all being called by the Divine to wake up.  To be the love and light that the world needs to heal.  We all need to heal in some way.

“Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you with leaving happier”  –  Mother Teresa

When you lift someone else up, it automatically lifts you up.  As the saying goes, “you rise by lifting others”.  It is not dependent on the other person appreciating your showing them love.  It is not dependent on it being reciprocated back to you.  It could even be ignored.  It will still lift both of you up.

This is because your showing love to others means that you are actively involved in the growth and support of another person.  Right now, you may not be in a place of being able to offer a refugee a place to stay.  You may not be in a place to donate money to help support someone in need.  But you are always in a place of showing love to someone.  Even if it is just a smile and a small prayer that love light their way forward.  You are always able to shine out the love and light to others.

Just Because My Path Is Different, Doesn’t Mean I’m Lost

It’s better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.

 – Diane Grant

When we try to walk down another persons road, it leads to disillusionment and disappointment. That is because it isn’t “our” road. In the book “The Pilgrimage”, Paulo Coelho said that:

It is our decision to walk, that creates the road ahead of us.

 – Paulo Coelho

Trying to explain to someone what our personal truth is for the path we are walking, is like trying to explain rocket science to a baby.  It isn’t that the baby will never understand rocket science.  It is that the baby isn’t yet developed enough to understand.  We can’t explain our path to someone who isn’t yet at that same stage of their own truth.  It will only create misunderstandings, miscommunications, and lots of frustration.  Even we sometimes can’t put into words the necessity for why we have to do something.  We just know that we have to do it.  It has to do with our being conscious and open minded enough to realize when we are being directed.  It has to do with our acceptance of that direction, even when we don’t know why.

It takes courage to keep walking when the path is obscured by confusion.  TRUST.  BELIEVE.  And just keep walking.  The way will be revealed.

  – Sue Krebs

It is both being courageous and having curiosity, that keeps us forging ahead on the path. It is the journey itself, that grows us as a person. It is our attitude about what happens.  It molds us either for our greater good, or for living out life disappointed as a victim of circumstances and bad luck.  It is the difference between knowing what you need to do, and doing what needs to be done.  It is easy to get the knowledge, but the wisdom only comes from putting that knowledge into action.  It can’t just be “book learning”, it also has to be married to “learning in action”.

Getting lost along your path is part of finding the path you are meant to be on.

 – Robin S. Sharma

It has been said that it’s never about obtaining the “goal”. It is rather about who you need to become, to achieve the goal.  There are many different roads to walk. They go through many different landscapes.  It could be a forest path, with giant trees that shadow the land.  It could be through sand dunes and along beaches.  It could be a path of a river which sometimes meanders slowly, and other times rushes through rapids crushing you against the rocks, and then dumps you down a waterfall.  It could be the hot desert or the frozen tundra.  Each path will require different skillsets in order for you to become the master of your journey.  Different clothing, different shoes, different temperatures to be endured.  Different equipment from ropes, boats, sleds etc. . . .  It is always your choice of where you step, and which path(s) your choose.  If you don’t like the first road you chose, move over to a new one.

You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

 – Marianne Williamson

It is always our decision to skip and sing our way along the yellow brick road, or to whine, complain, dragging our feet as we ask “are we there yet”?  Are you standing in your own truth?  Are you walking your own path?  Is your heart guiding you?  Look for the opportunities to better understand the journey.  Look for the helpers to guide us on our path.  The destination or outcome of our journey isn’t what is important.  It is who we are becoming, what we are actually doing that makes us successful.

I have always loved the saying, “It’s not the destination,… it’s the journey”. This is because the path we choose is our journey. It is where we live our life. It is all of life’s experiences. The good, bad, and the ugly. The messy parts, as well as the glorious adventures. We can see treasures every single day, if we just take the time to notice them.  Life goes on, it moves on.  It does it regardless of whether we are saying yes to our destiny or running the other way.  Since the path to happiness lies in the direction of our destiny, why not say yes?  Choose happiness.

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

 – Garth Nix

Along the way, we live life out loud. We can choose to taste and savor the experiences that that journey brings to us. The more that we can reach out in happiness, joy, and just plain exuberance, the richer our life is. The destination is simply a road sign. A sign that we made it to “X”. Then we begin planning a new destination or goal. It’s all about the road we choose, the path we forge.  Who we are becoming.  What we reveal and release that is not truly who we are at heart.

By choosing the path, we choose the destination.

 –  Thomas Monson

Have you ever heard the saying, “you can’t go home again”?  The reason why is that while you were away, you changed.  You look at things differently.  You think that everything changed.  But in reality it was you who changed.  The house you lived in as a small child, suddenly looks much smaller – the house didn’t change size – but your way of looking at the world changed.  We are all far from who we once were, and we are still farther from whom we are growing into.  What is really scary is when you go home again, and see those who haven’t changed.  They haven’t even put on foot onto their path.  They are still stuck back five, ten, or twenty years ago with the same victimhood mentality.  They are caution signs to keep walking on your path.

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

 – Henry Miller

So cast off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds and see where they take you. Remember that you are always only one decision away from a totally different life. Embrace the journey and it will love you back.  Trust your journey, even when you don’t understand where destiny is taking you.  It could just be the biggest, most juiciest trip of your life.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.

  – Rumi

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Make Sure To Taste Your Words, Before You Say Them Out Loud

Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who you are.  It is almost impossible to truly understand what another person has experienced in their life.  Even if you have experienced a similar trauma, you don’t have the same fears, doubts, sorrows or pain that they have, each of which colors their experience of the trauma.

It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides.  What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight.  And more often than not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of the soul.

  –  Sherrilyn Kenyon

That is why the very act of judgment is so harmful.  Most of us have the mean inner critic that creates a lot of havoc in our life.  We really don’t need the additional bench of outsiders judging us too.  Judging doesn’t bring anything positive to the table. 

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.  Doubt separates people.  It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations.  It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

  – Buddha

What doubt and judgment reflects of us is actually small prejudices.  These small personal judgments or beliefs we make are deceptive because the are like the thorns – tiny, but dangerous.  It works its way into the body and festers,  creating an infection than can imperil your life.  This is what leads to extremist thinking and actions.  It is these thorns that lead to bombings, to being a sniper in a tower shooting innocent people, to so many of the mass murders and terrorist actions we see today.

Allow judgments, expectations, and illusions to fade into the darkness. And in the light, all that remains is love. 

  – Greig Grippen

True empathy for one another means that we step out of the initial judgment or thought that we have about ourselves or another person.  It requires that we look beneath the surface to see what the storms of life have dumped into us.  When you peer into the water of a lake, you see the things hidden from view. There is dirt, mud, rocks, sand, sticks, leaves, things that you expect to find.  But what else might be there?  What has the  rain, wind, flooding dumped into the water over the years? 

There will always be a reason why you meet people.  Either you need them to change your life or you are the one that will change theirs.

  – Unknown

I remember that some divers went into a small lake just a few miles from Seattle-Tacoma Airport after a bad storm.  The lake is surrounded by office buildings and homes.  What they found were lawn chairs, outside tables, and various things that had been blown into the water over the years from the homes around the lake.  They also found a very, very, old hand hewn canoe from a tree, thought to be over 150 yrs old.  Just like this lake had been hiding many things beneath the surface, so do we.  Empathy  is what allows us to dive deep and begin to truly understand what might be going on.

We also have to look at the reason we are making the judgments, from a self improvement perspective.  There is a saying that every judgment we make about others, is about something that we don’t want to admit seeing in ourselves.  So when we make that judgment about somebody’s body being covered by tattoo’s or that they have bright green or purple hair, or that outfit is too young for them and so on and so on.  What is that judgment reflecting about us? 

“Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “No, I’ll fall.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “You’ll push me.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  So I went and I was pushed and I flew.

  – Zen Proverb

I know that in the past for myself, I noticed that I made judgments about people who dressed differently than I did – in ways that drew attention to themselves, it was because I was jealous.  I was too afraid to call that much attention to myself.  Now that I know what was underneath of that judgment, it has shifted into being inspired by their courage.  What judgments do you habitually make that could be shifted into something positive?  Instead of judging others by the results of actions, what if we looked at the initial intentions, exercised empathy and went on from there? 

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.

  – Rumi

The rush to judgment is the exact opposite of this.  It is a rush to hate on someone, when the true story isn’t even known.  The whole concept of bad news traveling fast is because no one has yet gotten all of the facts.  When my nephew was murdered, the headline in the paper was about one gang member killing someone in a rival gang.  My nephew wasn’t a gang member and had never associated with anyone who was.  He was simply walking through the park late at night taking a short cut to a friends house to get his bike and ride home.  He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  Two days later, the paper corrected itself, on a back page.  We see this happen all of the time on the internet.  Instead, wouldn’t it be nice to see some comments on lets not make judgments until we hear all of the facts of an investigation?

The secret in life is enjoying the passage of time.  Instead of clutching onto the past or fearing the future, experiment with letting go into the mystery of life.  Float on the river of time, curious about its direction, open to its changing nature.  You don’t really know where it’s going, so why not relax and experience the ride?

  – Elizabeth Lesser

Instead lets meet in the field, with the idea of laying aside the blame and judgments.  Lets allow ourselves to live life without the judgment of wrong doing or right doing.  Where instead, we can simply live a more loved filled life.  I know that this sounds like an unrealistic impossible place.  But even if we could come close to the edges of such a field, think about how much our own lives would improve.  About how much the world around us would be improved, just by us trying to live in this space.

In silence there is eloquence.  Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

  – Rumi

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This Is The Year I Am Unstoppable

This is the year, that I become the warrior woman that I didn’t think I could be.

This is the year, that every morning begins with a cup of the grandest vision I can imagine.

This is the year that I find the gold inside of me, and don’t try to dilute it.

This is the year that instead of allowing that critical voice inside my head to stop me, I will dust off my stiletto kick ass heals and crush it.

This is the year, that I let the wild and crazy girl go free.

This is the year that no one (not even me), can put out the burning desire that rages deep inside of me.

This is the year that “I am already everything I need”, becomes more than just a saying.

This is the year, that my “will” is stronger than fears resistance.

This is the year that I will forgive myself freely, and love myself relentlessly.

This is the year that my life is a living, breathing, screaming, invitation to believe in better things, not only for myself, but for the whole world.

This is the year that God is bringing new seasons of growth into my life.

This is the year that new doors of opportunity will up-level my life to a glorious future beyond my wildest dreams.

This is the year that the way I live my life, respects and enhances the freedom of others.

This is the year that I will always speak the truth, even if no one wants to hear, or will listen to it.

This is the year that I shine like a beacon through whatever dark nights come.

This is the year that I dance with change and transformation instead of fighting it.

This is the year that passion and purpose become that favorite dress that I wear for all occasions.

This year when I feel the start of something new, I am going to pay attention and follow the directions.

 

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Difficult Roads Lead to Beautiful Destinations

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

  – Marianne Williamson

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

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

  – Unknown

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

The only limits you have are the limits you believe.

  –   Wayne Dyer

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

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

  –   Helen Keller

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

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

  – Billy Corgan

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

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

  – Perter Kemmsies

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

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

  –  Unknown

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

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

  – Susan Barbara Apollon

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

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

  – William James

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Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere – MLK Jr.

“Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed.  If people all over the world would do this, it would change the earth”  – William Faulkner

Kym Worthy is a true Lemonademaker.  She inspires me because she truly makes a difference.  She changed not just her local county that she worked in, she really changed cities around the entire United States.  She was like water.  She went around obstacles, she broke up boulders in her way, she flooded the media, she stormed through anyone and anything standing in her way and got justice for rape victims who had been waiting for it for as long as 30 years.  She is my hero.

“There be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protect”  – Elie Wiesel

Her story starts back in 2009 when she was an assistant DA with Wayne County in Michigan.  In the summer of 2009, Rob Spada who worked in her office was taking a tour with local police through an evidence warehouse.  Passing by rows upon rows of white cardboard boxes he asked what they were.  He was told they were rape kits.  When he pulled down four random boxes he discovered that they were all unprocessed rape kits – 11,341 kits, some more than 30 years old (statute of limitations is 20 years).

In the past half-dozen years, backlogs of untested rape kits have been discovered in Memphis, 12,000; Cleveland, nearly 4,000; Tulsa, 3,783; Milwaukee, 2,655; Dallas, 4,144; San Diego, 2,873; Miami, 2,900; Honolulu, 1,500. Smaller cities are not immune, either. Kansas City, Missouri, had 1,324 backlogged kits; Tempe, Arizona, more than 500; Flint, Michigan, 246.

“When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty” – Unknown

Rob Spada contacted Kym Worthy in his office and told her what he had found.  She first wrote to then Detroit Police Chief Warren Evans requesting a meeting to discuss how to proceed.  When she didn’t get a response, she wrote Chief Evans again, adding, “It is imperative that your Department move on this as soon as possible.” Again, nothing.

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”  – Desmond Tutu

Not one to stop at no answer, the story was leaked to the newpaper resulting in “Rape Evidence Shelved?” as the front page of the Detroit Free Press on September 22, 2009.  Worthy put together a plan for her office to take the lead on testing the kits, but then Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano, who controlled her budget, shot it down. The county simply couldn’t afford it, he said, and it was really a problem for city hall and the police, not the county.

Kym is not a woman who takes no for an answer.  What she did next was to spearhead a national movement for reform.  In May 2010, at the invitation of U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), she testified about the backlog before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee.  Later that year, the research arm of the Department of Justice gave Worthy and her partner agencies a grant to test 400 random kits, to provide a statistically significant snapshot of what was at stake, and then in April 2011, the agency followed up with a $1.5 million grant to address the backlog.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”  – Unknown

To test all of them, Worthy estimated she’d need about $17 million (the lab work ran $1,000 to $1,500 per kit). On top of that, she intended to investigate every single case, even those that didn’t end up having meaningful forensic evidence. But she had only three sex-crime investigators on her staff, the police department had as few as six.

“One person can stop a great injustice.  One person can be a voice for truth.  One person’s kindness can save a life” – Nicky Gumbel

The nonprofit Detroit Crime Commission—which, on behalf of Worthy’s office, had negotiated the cost of testing down to $490 per kit—joined with the Michigan Women’s Foundation to launch what organizers believe was the first-ever crowdfunded campaign for a government program, called Enough SAID (Sexual Assault in Detroit).

“An unrectified case of injustice has a terrible way of lingering, restlessly, in the social atmosphere like an unfinished equation”  – Mary McCarthy

They received donations from everyone and everywhere.  A local canasta club started donating the pot from its weekly game; the Galentine’s Book Club kicked in $525. In October 2015, a coalition of African American businesswomen held a fundraiser that leveraged the rivalry between the University of Michigan and Michigan State football teams to net more than $30,000. Sheryl Sandberg donated an unsolicited $25,000 to the cause. To date, Enough SAID has raised $1.5 million in private contributions.  by the beginning of 2016, $8 million had been allocated to Enough SAID by public bodies ranging from the state attorney general’s office to the Michigan legislature.

Worthy didn’t just rustle up money; she also transformed the “entire culture of law enforcement,” as her deputy Spada puts it. In his 20-plus years at the prosecutor’s office, he says, “I’ve seen a change in how police approach sexual assault victims. That’s been brought about by Kym, in how she attacked the problem and let it be known publicly that society had certain kinds of assumptions about what a victim would act like or be like.”

“If you look at any other group of people suffering injustice, women are always in the worst situation within that group”  – Salma Hayek

Worthy also has spearheaded the push for concrete legal and procedural reforms. Michigan law, enacted in 2014, requires that rape kits move through each level of law enforcement according to a mandated timeline—three months from start to finish—and both police and healthcare professionals must notify victims about their right to obtain information about their own kits.

“The time is always right to do what is right”  –  Martin Luther King Jr.

I believe that Kurt Cobain stated the problem of rape many years ago.  Kurt Cobain said, “Rape is one of the most terrible crimes on earth and it happens every few minutes.  The problem with groups who deal with rape is that they try to educate women about how to defend themselves.  What really needs to be done is teaching men not to rape.  Go to the source and start there.“

See the full article which includes ones rape victims story of getting justice 15 years later.  This story was first published by Elle and I found it with an article in NationSwell.

Do you see in your own life where injustices were tolerated by yourself and others?  Be inspired for follow in Kym’s footsteps.  She got creative.  She raised awareness.  She didn’t let the matter go away.  Even though her journey took years to complete, she stayed true to her vision and her conscience.

We all Matter

The fact that we are human beings is infinitely more important than all the peculiarities that distinguish human beings from one another – Simone de Beauvoir

When I was a little girl and I was behaving badly, my mom would always say it was because my hair was in my eyes, and I needed to get my bangs cut.  I never did figure out if there really was a correlation between hair in your eyes and bad behavior.  But if there is, then there are a lot of people in the world that need to get their bangs cut.

It seems like the news agencies and our government have gotten into a rut.  A pattern of bad behavior where they are just waiting to maliciously pounce on one another.  They have forgotten their purpose.  They got sidetracked and can’t seem to find their way back to their purpose.

Sometimes the same thing happens to us.  We get sidetracked off on some piece of drama.  As it plays out, we get sucked further and further down that particular rabbit hole.  It’s like when you go into the kitchen to get a drink of water.  Then you notice stuff on the counter that someone got out and didn’t put away.  So, you put it away.  Then you notice dishes in the sink.  So, mumbling about how you have to do it all, you take care of that.  Then you are tired and go back into the living room to sit on the sofa, completely forgetting that you got up to get a glass of water.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them – regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or economic circumstances – Christopher Dodd

The world right now if you pay attention to the news seems pretty scary.  It would seem that it is filled with violence, and racial and gender hatred.  For some reason, the news and our political leaders around the world seem to be focused on the small minorities of events that are truly negative.  Nothing is said about the positive things that are going on around us.

In Washington hundreds maybe even thousands of employees are doing a great job, but you don’t hear about their progress, you hear about the negative fighting that is going on within the political parties and even amongst their own parties.

In your local town, the news for 45 minutes will be about every negative thing going on around the world, and then they spend a less than 5 minute segment on someone in the local area that is giving back and helping those in need.  We need to reverse this trend.  Spend more time on the great people all around us that are doing great work helping others.  Celebrate milestones in people’s lives.

It has to begin with peaceful collaborative action.  We as in all of humanity, all matter and we are all equal.  We may have different colors of skin; have different religious beliefs; have different cultures and social and economic backgrounds, but we are still all the same.

We all need to be seen and heard as being a part of our families and communities.  We need to turn towards each other in brotherly love and trust.  We are all one people, and we need to start standing together.

We need to cultivate it like a garden – the gardening science of human relationships.  We need to weed out what is wrong, support what is weak, and prune off anything that isn’t supporting the growth of peace.

We’re All human, aren’t we?  Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving – J.K. Rowling

Each of us has a powerful voice that needs to be heard.  You have the right to speak up when wrongdoing is being done or condoned.  It is the basis of how this country was founded.

Instead of listening to those who seek to tear down your country out of fear, you need to show the world just how powerful a group of people can be when they come from their hearts with peace and love to each other.

We need to transform that fear into love and forgiveness.  The world will be changed by our positive examples of reaching out to each other in love.

You have thoughts and ideas of what can be done to improve our broken system.  You need to listen with both ears to what others are saying.  You need to be slow to speak from the standpoint of making sure that your words are contributing to the discussion, and not tearing it apart.  You need to be part of the solution.  We all want a world without war, conflict or suffering

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible – Maya Angelou

When you see police shootings of unarmed men or women in their pajamas who were just trying to report a possible crime, it is obvious that changes must be made.  Not only laws or procedures, but hearts and minds need to be changed.

If you start with your own heart and mind, seeking to rip out the prejudices and judgements that you have yourself, then we will have made a good start to what needs to be done by every person in our world.

Walls turned sideways are bridges – Angela Davis