I Rise Up

I Rise Up

The drum beats echo in the night,

calling my heart to wake up,

Whirlwinds suck up the ashes of my abandoned dreams,

I rise up,

Sparks catch the ashes and burst into flames,

igniting my souls dream to wake up,

Surging through the blood,

inflaming the passions of my heart, I rise up.

Dreams are the warriors of my soul,

stirring me to action, I wake up,

Like the Phoenix rising from the ashes ,

I rise up,

Dreams arise from the ashes remade,

even as I slide back into slumber, I wake up,

Rising from the ashes,

I again take flight, I rise up.

My heart rhythm matches the beats of the drum,

echoing in the heart of darkness, I wake up,

The roots imprisoning my feet stir at my souls fire,

heat rises up through my body, I rise up,

My soul breaks free of the restraints put upon it,

to slumber and sleep, I wake up

My soul rising up to take flight to the heavens,

chasing after the sun, I rise up

An eternal flame, a comet, I blaze across the heavens,

I have woke up,

The comet tail blazes across the sky,

it flares as I rise up,

Fully awake to my souls purpose,

once again I battle to fulfill it,

to wake the sleepers up,

For they too were conquered,

reduced to ashes they feel asleep, but now awakening,

WE RISE UP!

You remember what God’s destiny is for you when you are little. You have these hopes and dreams of what you will be when you grow up. Then you start school and like most of us, you lost sight of the those dreams. They got buried and forgotten.  Like tumbleweeds you were blown away by the dust devils across the fields, your dreams broken and unseen.

Then something happens that knocks the wind out of you. Everything that you thought was important in your life, is shown to be fools gold. You stumbled and fell down. You grieved your loss in sackcloth and ashes. And because you are really lucky, you are remembered or are remembering what you are here to do.

So grab your pillows and shake last nights dreams loose from the feathers that you bound them up in.  RISE UP.  Those abandoned dreams are not truly cold and dead.  They lay buried in the dream caverns, waiting for you to bring them back to life.  To blow upon them the breath of life, igniting them once again into a steady flame.

“We always have the potential to rise. Rise out of our slump. Rise out of our negative thoughts. Rise out of our comfort zone. Rise out of our complaints, GET UP AND RISE…, Rising is a choice that’s one powerful thought away” – Kris Carr

What will defines you, is the RISE UP part. Everyone will fall down.  You fall asleep because the going was so hard.  You told yourself that you deserved to take it easy just for a little while.  And so you fell asleep.  It is part of the human experience. There is a spark of divinity in you still, and it is in the RISE UP part.  It is how to become the person you were meant to be. The importance of this, is that the world is waiting for you and your gifts. It needs you to RISE UP, one more time and reenter the ring of life and fight the battle you were sent to fight.  Something happens, these small occurrences, these coincidences.  They start these sparks, that shine brightly .  They will draw you in, they will stoke up those hidden fires.  You will wake up.

“Coincidences are glimpses in to the creative mind of the universe”  – Deepak Chopra

Each time you are reborn like the phoenix, you are just a little bit wiser from life’s experiences. You are stronger because even though you got knocked down, you got back up one more time. As long as you don’t quit, the “fat lady hasn’t sang”. It isn’t over, and you can still be a winner, fulfilling your destiny.  Breathe your dreams to life, by taking one small step.  Listen to the whispers of your soul.  Enter the cave of your dreams and release them from their shackles of limitations, because in truth you have no limits.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek”  – Joseph Campbell

So if you are feeling a little sore, like a semi truck ran over you, backed up, and ran over you again, remember – remember you are like the Phoenix and can rise up from the ashes. Remember that the spark is always buried in the ashes, and just needs you to blow on it to re-ignite the flames.  The dream doesn’t really die.  It doesn’t expire.  Look inside and awaken.  Undergo a radical transformation and like the Phoenix RISE UP. Listen to your heart and RISE UP.  RISE UP and follow your soul to the stars and beyond.

Remember that when life throws you to the wolves, you can come back leading the pack!

Come join us on March 7th for our next monthly free webinar on how to live your life with 20/20 focus. How to face the fears that are keeping you locked out of your destiny. How to unlock your cages and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world. Come and renew yourself. Find your voice and RISE UP!

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.

Watering Concrete Will Never Grow A Garden

“You should not have to rip yourself into pieces to make others feel whole”  – Unknown

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind didn’t matter, and those who matter won’t mind”  –  Dr. Seuss

“The whole secret of a successful life is to find out what is one’s destiny to do, and then do it”  – Henry Ford

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has”  – Margaret Mead

“Think big and don’t listen to people who tell you it can’t be done.  Life’s too short to think small”  – Tim Ferris

“The medicine for my suffering I had within me from the very beginning, but I did not take it. My ailment came from within myself, but I did not observe it. Until this moment. Now I see that I will never find the Light unless, like the candle, I am my own fuel”  – Bruce Lee

What would you be if the people around you refused to let you fail?

Burn brightly and never, ever, ever, let anyone convince you to be less than the brightly shining star that you are.

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

A Heroes Journey Begins With A Call Or A Fall – What Will You Choose?

Most of us are in what Joseph Campbell calls “Sleepy Land”. We get so bound up in the day to day details of living, that we fall asleep to our purpose.

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, “Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there, and so it starts.

  – Joseph Campbell

Then one day it happens. We notice that we are missing something. We want more. We wake up to the fact that “more” is not more money.  It is not a better job.  It is not a bigger house.  It is not a more luxurious car. It is elusive, and we may not know what “it” is.  But we begin to figure out what “it” isn’t. It is our birthright,.  It is what takes our life from “normal” to “greatness”.

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.

  – Carol Pearson

Men like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson figured out what that was for them. And while they had all of the things that people think will make them happy, it was the “more” that actually brought them to greatness.  The dragons we must confront are all the lies that we told ourselves.  If I rise up in the ranks at work, I will be happy.  If I make six or seven figures, then I will be happy.  If only I had a sports car I would be so happy.  What we must discover is what “it” is.

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

  – Martin Buber

They may have started out after all of the material things, but they ended up with the “more”.  There is a Billy Crystal movie from years ago.  It was called City Slickers.  Billy Crystal’s character meets up with this cowboy who asks him if he knows the secret of life.  “One thing.  Just one thing.  You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”  Billy Crystals character asks him what that one thing is, and the cowboy replies, “that’s what you have to find out.”  It isn’t things and stuff.  It is something more.  It is something that demands more of you than you think that you have to give.  And if you find it, and follow it where it leads, you will lead a life you never thought would be possible.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

  – Joseph Campbell

This something else is transcendence. Transcendence happens when we “reclaim the visionary, the utopian, the dream of the better or happier world”  – when everything that we touch becomes a prayer. 

The genuine exploration of one’s self as an individual is the greatest contribution you can make toward humanity and all life.  Ironically, inner self-reliance is what makes the whole of humanity stronger.

  – Unknown

So how do we discover what it is? We have to walk out the door of the safe comfortable space we have created for ourselves.  We have to walk down that path to the unknown. We have to enter the dark forest. You have to embark on the Hero’s journey. It is how you discover the vast resources that reside within you. A hero’s journey – finding the edge of your unknown forest, and entering into the heart of darkness.

What do you find there? You explore the caves of the past and you wake up to the dreams of the future. You let go of the life of existence, of “go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat over and over again”.  The journey is an individual one, and each persons journey is different.  We have to go within and listen to what our own truth is.  Some walks you have to take alone.  Otherwise your truth, your inner voice gets drowned out by others.

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.

 –   Joseph Campbell

Traveling down into the depths of the abyss we recover treasures of life. We recover the dreams we let die.  Se see that the stories that we have told ourselves about past hurts are not entirely true. We become excavator’s and dig up the bones of the past.  We let the past blow away like dust on the winds of healing. We see that most of the problems in our life have been mirrors being held up to us.  Most of the time, we were too blind or too scared to acknowledge the truth. By exploring the darkness we become enlightened.

The fatal mistake is waiting for life’s circumstances to be right before we begin.  Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel.  Practice knowing and you will know.

  – Hugh Prather

We become curious, our mind opens up to new ideas. Changes begin as we see new worlds to explore that have lain beneath the normalcy of our past life. We see possibilities instead of complications. We wonder. We release. We transform. We heal and become whole for the first time.  We have to enter the forest and break away, to walk the hero’s path.

We realize that although we were damaged, we survived and that makes us dangerous. Because we now know how to not only survive, we know how to become whole again. We become both a mentor and a teacher for ourselves.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

  – Rumi

Being a mentor to oneself with love, light, grace, and compassion. Being a teacher to yourself with rage, darkness, fear, and judgment. We are both.  Both are required for the heroes journey. Speaking love to overcome rage,.  Speaking light to overcome darkness.  Speaking grace to overcome fear.  Speaking compassion to overcome judgment.

I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.

  – Kami Garcia

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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.

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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Enter Into The Flow of An Ever Changing Life

 “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like”  – Lao Tzu

Every year in January the majority of us will set goals for the new year. You may call them New Years Resolutions or goals. They can be personal goals such as your weight or physical fitness goals, or business/financial goals. What ever they are they generally designed to enhance your life in some way. 

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way.  Instead let life live through you.  And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.  How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?” –  Rumi

One thing that I have discovered about myself is realizing when I am pushing a goal to happen in a certain way or time frame, life gets frustrating and hard. But if I step back and look at my goal from the aspect of divine timing, I can usually see that the reason why the goal isn’t progressing. There is something that I am missing, something vital to make it happen. When the progress towards the goal starts to become pushing a boulder uphill, I know now to walk it backward down the hill until the pressure is released. 

“When we resist change, it’s called suffering.  But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called awakening…, Another word for that is freedom – freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human” –  Pema Chadron

I step back and re-look at what I am doing. Re-look at the time table. Re-examine the reasons behind the goal to see if I need to adjust what the goal is trying to accomplish. I love the analogy of flowing downstream in a river. There are these little bays or inlets, eddies in the river where you can float in stillness. In these places, you acquire knowledge, skills, make partnerships, etc.., things that will be needed later down river. You have a chance to examine and revise your goals based on new knowledge. Then when the timing is right, you re-enter into the river and flow further downstream. 

“People don’t resist change.  They resist being changed”  – Peter M Senge

When you step out of the river of change, you are trying to keep your comfort zone in place.  Change threatens your comfort zone.  In the process of trying to keep a stable, balanced comfort zone you step out of the river.  You damn up the divine flow of your life.

• What if . . , instead of using the word “change” which might be threatening, you substituted the word “becoming”.  You are not changing, you are becoming?
• What if . . , instead of thinking that your life is falling apart from the transitions that are happening, you instead saw your life falling together, falling into place?
• What if . . , instead of feeling like you are a puzzle with pieces falling to the ground, you saw yourself as letting go of what no longer belongs in your life?

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it”  – Lena Horne

Stop struggling against the load, Instead, relax and float. You can float for hours. It is the struggle that makes you exhausted, wastes all of your energy and breaks you down, so that you give up. The struggle and the pushing come from trying to force things to happen a certain way.  You can force your foot into a shoe one size too small, but you will only cause blisters and pain for yourself.  Drop the expectations,, stop pushing for change, and let it unfold with divine timing. 

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful” –  Gautama Buddha

Go within, where the wisdom and clarity reside. Instead of having to defend yourself, or prove something, you discover the compassion to simply let life flow forward and outward in simplicity.

“If you are quiet enough, you will hear the flow of the universe.  You will feel its rhythm. Go with this flow.  Happiness lies ahead.  Meditation is the key.”  Buddha

The way you meet an ending impacts the new beginning.  Or to put another way, the way you meet change impacts who you are becoming.  When a door opens for you, it’s not just something new entering into your life.  It’s your life becoming something new.

Change happens whether you want it to or not.  So stop fighting change.  Stop striving for perfection.  Trying to manage change only slows it down, and your experience of change will be impacted by negative emotions.  Instead embrace change.  Lean into it.  Discover what lessons it has to teach you.  Take a moment to become curious.  Trust that it is leading you into a better tomorrow.

Ending with my two favorite Bruce Lee quotes:

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend”  – Bruce Lee

And the second one is:

“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.  I wish you success in growing beyond any plateaus that you are currently experiencing in your life. Be water and flow” – Bruce Lee

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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