Be Bold With Your Dreams

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit.  Genius hits a target no one else can see”  – Arthur Schopenhauer

As children you learned this lesson: “do as your told; don’t make waves; be a good girl/boy; be quiet; sit still”; and the rules go on forever. You learned to trade in everything you wanted to do, for the smile of happiness on someone else’s face. The smile that is the proof that they love you, but only when you do as they say.

“The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can’t be any large-scale revolution until there’s a personal revolution, on an individual level. It’s got to happen inside first” – Jim Morrison

So you became an expert on putting on the mask.  You squeezed yourself into the mold provided and hoped that no one noticed how much you spilled over the sides of it.  Adults thought that they were molding your character, which may be true.  What they might not realize is that they are also compressing who you are in reality.

“God has plucked you out of eternity, positioned you in time, and given you gifts and talents to serve him in this generation” – Christine Caine

Your brain keeps you in this same position with self doubt and fears. These doubts and fears tell you that you don’t have a personal genius. It tells you that you don’t have what it takes, or that you will have to walk away from everyone that you love as a sacrifice to achieve your personal goals.  It keeps you framed into a small picture of who and what you are.  You are walled away from your self confidence.  It takes a daring attitude, and tremendous tenacity, to free your personal genius.  You MUST break out of the frame of limitations.

“My method is different. I do not rush into actual work. When I get a new idea, I start at once building it up in my imagination, and make improvements and operate the device in my mind. When I have gone so far as to embody everything in my invention, every possible improvement I can think of, and when I see no fault anywhere, I put into concrete form the final product of my brain” – Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla took a truly different route to access his personal genius. He didn’t let his ideas escape his imagination.  He let the possibilities run wild, then he put in structure and form and tested it.  Only then did he take his idea to completion.  That way his brain couldn’t attack it and destroy it while it only existed on the drawing board.  By keeping it inside, in his imagination, the mind couldn’t attack it until he had worked out all of the possible kinks it might have had. He fenced out limitations, and allowed his spark of brilliance to cascade until he achieved a solid plan for that invention.

“You cannot discover your own genius if you set personal limitations that soothe everyone else around you. The spark of brilliance does not exist because of expectations. It (genius) sets the standard” –  Amy Larson

Not being a slave to the ordinary is the only way to access personal genius. In school you learn that if you want to be an A student, you give them the answers that they want. They may not be the right answers in your own mind, but you can’t argue or reason with them. They only want the answers they are looking for. They stay safely framed in a society that wants you to be small, to live in a fully interpreted world that makes being creative something you do when you have “free time” as a hobby.

“Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary” – Cecil Beaton

Personal genius happens when you leave that world behind you. We see examples of business disrupters where someone comes in with an idea that totally changes how things are done.  The Internet was a huge business disrupter.  It changed how communication happened; it changed how businesses did their business.  There isn’t any part of society that hasn’t been affected.  When you go outside the “normal” this is how it has always been done – programmed response or behavior, you discover that you can have your own experiences. Experiences that allow you to figure out for yourself what it means to you personally.

“We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or others peoples models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open” – Shakti Gawain

The thing that seems so easy to you is your God given talent, your gift(s). You’re certain anyone could do it, that you are not anything special. But if you take off that mask and expose your limiting beliefs in yourself and your talent(s), you will discover that you are in fact special, a genius in many ways . Unleash the imagination. Explore the possibilities of everything in life.

Each one of us has all the wisdom and knowledge we ever need right within us. It is available to us through our intuitive mind, which is our connection with universal intelligence”  –  Shakti Gawain

There bound up in chains and buried in a deep hole is your personal genius. It is time to look into your magic mirror, your looking glass, and see another reality. Assert your integrity of purpose and become a visionary around this gift. Your future has been waiting for you to break free. Don’t let anyone put try to put it back into that limiting frame. Set yourself free, be free to become who you were meant to be.

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 chains and break free.  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 propel your life forward.

Getting onto the Right Path

One of my favorite stories comes from Love, Medicine and Miracles by Dr. Bernie Seigal. A young man wanted to become a violinist. His parents said no, become a lawyer. He went to law school and started practicing law. He then developed what was diagnosed as terminal cancer. Thinking he was going to die, he got a job playing violin for an orchestra. Years later, he was still alive because he realized he was on the wrong path. He had to live his life, not the life of his parents.

Knowing when to walk away is wisdom, being able to do so is courage.

Isn’t it amazing that cancer is what gave him courage enough to walk away?  He demonstrated how true the maxim is that every cloud has a silver lining.  Can you think of examples when you went through a dark time only to find at the end that it gave you what you had always dreamed and wanted?

Your body knows when you are not living your authentic life, and you will receive a wake-up call.

• It is important, that you listen.  That you look within and examine your life.
• It is vital, that you create the courage to make the change.
• It is critical, that you realize that just because you are walking down the right path, doesn’t mean there won’t be obstacles.
• Your need of courage includes being courageous enough to face the fact that you will still make mistakes, experience disappointments and despair.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.  Everything we see is perspective, not the truth” – Marcus Aurelius

This is where the ability to both look around you, and within yourself becomes important. It doesn’t mean that you are on the wrong path just because something goes wrong. It just means that you need to grow more, to be able to continue the journey.

In every journey something in your life will become complete.  It will have played out its purpose.  That road map will no longer lead you in the right direction.  You need to wake up to follow a new direction and not just blindly continue down a road that no longer leads you in the right direction.

Every year roads change.  New maps are made.  If your car has a GPS unit it will need to become updated.  The road that used to go through that small town, now bypasses it.  Internally your GPS has updated itself and you need to follow a new path.

U-Turns don’t take you all the way back.  They just take you back far enough that you can take the turn you missed.  Life’s road twists and turns.  There are no two directions that are ever the same.  So, when you complete a U-turn, it is just like taking a right-hand turn.

You can’t truly go backwards, although it seems like it some days.  Trying to, is very disappointing, as you can’t recreate what we left behind.  You changed and so did everyone else.

Don’t allow yourself to become the boulder blocking the path. This is what happens when you try to go backwards.

• You block our own path.
• You recreate similar patterns of self-destruction.

If you do, that is when you know that it is time to listen to the heart.  Your heart and soul are like the magnetic needle on the compass. Always go to “true north” and you will be on the right path.

I have always maintained that U-turns are part of every journey to some place that I don’t know. I expect them, I laugh when they happen. U-Turns can be really interesting.

What I have learned in my life is that every single experience has something important in it that I needed to learn. I may only understand later, why that piece of knowledge was required.

I have been in the mortgage industry for over 40 years. So I have lived through good and bad cycles in the financial industry. Years ago I had a good job, but the owner of another company kept calling me to come and work for him. Finally after months of getting his phone calls, I gave notice and went to work for him. This job would end up being a U-turn for me.

He had hired a free lance writer to create a manual for the mortgage brokers he worked with, and she seemed unable to finish the project, so as part of my job I took that project to completion.

Then two weeks later I was laid off, when the interest rates hiked up and his business slowed down. I really yelled at myself, because I felt I had made a wrong decision in taking that job.  I felt I should have stayed where I was, safe in  my comfort zone.

We ended up having to move out of state in order for me to find work. But what happened next, was really interesting.

The Savings and Loan I went to work for needed manuals written for their servicing department, and because I had that experience I got the job of being both an underwriter and a trainer. I created several training programs for them, as well as the servicing manual.

Then I got a second part time job teaching at South Seattle Community College for an adult education class for loan processors and loan officers. I ended up creating new manuals for this position too, because their manuals were so bad. Both of these jobs would not have been available to me, if I hadn’t taken that earlier job and got the experience of creating a manual.

“Move on.  It’s just a chapter in your life.  Don’t close the book, just turn the page for a new chapter”  – Unknown

So you will fall down. You may even get lost. U-Turns are a given. But as long as you take out that compass, listen to your heart, and keep creating the courage in your soul, you will be on the right path. As long as you tune into true north, you can take that step into the unknown, knowing that this is the right path.

If you want to soar in life, you must first love yourself

If you want to soar in life, you must first love yourself.

“You have to love yourself because no amount of love from others is sufficient to fill the yearning that your soul requires from you” – Dodinsky

So many of you have put the cart before the horse when it comes to love. You spend all of your time “earning” the love of others by being who they want you to be. By doing everything in your power to make their life perfect. You put others ahead of yourself and at the end of the day, nothing turns out the way you wanted it to.  You are left feeling like a failure, just “not good enough”.

There is a show on PBS called “Home Fires”.  It takes place in England during WWII.  It’s about a women’s group that contributes to the village and the war effort.  In the first season there is one woman whose husband abuses her.  Like all abusers he makes every time he loses his temper to be her fault.  The real issue at hand for the story line is that he is a newspaper writer who can’t get enough work, so of course he takes it out on someone he is supposed to love.

A few of her best friends figure out what is happening, but at the point in history there really isn’t anything they can do about it.  She is too ashamed to admit what is happening.  The times that she struggles to fight back, he leaves her self-worth in even more tatters.  At the end of the first season, one of her friends was successful in getting him a war correspondent job without him being aware of her having a hand in it.

He leaves the village to go to the front, and now his wife has the opportunity to start loving herself and building up her self-esteem.  The hope being that she doesn’t fall back into the same situation when he returns.  One of the underlying contributors of why women stay in abusive situations is that they don’t love themselves enough to gather up what remains of their self-worth and self-trust, to leave and not look back.

“Love yourself enough to take the actions required for your happiness.  Love yourself enough to cut yourself loose from the ties of the drama filled past.  Love yourself enough to move on” – Dr. Steve Maraboli

You may not be in such an extreme situation with your self-love, but you only have to listen to the comments you make to yourself, to know that it is something you can still do more work on.

When you live your life in such a way that reflects, you’re coming in last, you buy into a lie.  A lie that loving yourself first will take away from loving others.  A lie that says the only way to be worthy of self-love, is to prove that others love you first. How could you attract the love of others, if you don’t even love yourself?

Trying to in essence purchase the love of others by the self sacrifice of yourself, is like trying to fit the square peg in the round hole.  You can push it, twist it, and pound the peg until it shatters, but it will never fit. It won’t fill that yearning from your soul, that begs you to put “love us” first.

5 Things to Quit – right now.

• Trying to please everyone
• Fearing Change
• Living in the past
• Putting yourself down
• Overthinking

You have the power to choose where you are going. You have the power to stop trying to get attention from those who hurt you most. You have the power to stop hating your body, your personality, and the pieces of you that don’t fit in the square hole.

You can start with loving yourself, saying “I love my thighs just as they are”, “I love my imperfect smile”, “I love that I snort when I laugh”, “I love me”.  You can get the truth of the situation into your bones – nobody will ever love you more than you love yourself.

It is critically important to your health and happiness – both physical and mental – that you treat yourself right.

What if for the rest of this year you devoted yourself to loving you more?  Your choices will change your life.

Make peace with your mirror and watch your reflection change.  The loss of judgment in your eyes.  The removing of the wrinkles of anxiety across the forehead, that you aren’t good enough.  The curve of the smile of self-confidence, that says you are amazing, and you are rocking that outfit.  The glow of inner peace and love that fills your space with light.  And – LOL – Best hair day EVER!

Our dreams are calling us

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable. – Seth Godin – Author and Speaker Our dreams are calling us. Are we answering them or putting them to voice mail, because we don’t want to have that inner conversation with ourselves. What causes us to put things on hold? How many of your dreams do you have in voice mail waiting for a return call? We all do this in some way. I know that if someone compliments me the first thought in my mind is discounting what they said. When I was growing up my sister closest in age to me was always the pretty one, the beautiful one. She is 18 months younger and her body matured faster than mine. She is several inches taller than my 5’3″. I was the smart one. This comparison ran through our childhood. She to this day carries that role of not being smart, even thought it isn’t true, and I carry the role of not being pretty. This past few weeks my personal FB page has really been growing. I think that FB has been showing my photo for my personal page up in “the people you know timeline”. My guess is that it is a combination of how many of you wonderful people are “Liking” our LemonadeMaker posts and page (Thank You!!!) and, as I am part of several large groups I end up having a lot of similar friends. I also think that some people figured out I am the founder of LemonadaMakers and request my personal fb friend page too. However it is happening, there has also been some of those requests that even though I try to screen them turn out to be men looking at my picture and requesting a friendship. When they say they like my smile – which is the usual first comment they make, I immediately think something negative like that’s because you don’t see the rest of me. Why do we do that? What is it that causes us to turn away from a compliment about our looks, the quality of our work – anything that seems personal? People could compliment me about my children or grandchildren and I don’t turn away from that. Only if it is personal about me. There was a commercial video I saw a few months back talking about the phrase “sorry” when we mean “excuse me”. We are apologizing when we didn’t do anything wrong It was by Pantene the shampoo company and it really reflected how many times we use it when we really mean something else. We open a office door to talk to someone and say “sorry”. We brush by someone and say “sorry”. The list goes on. Look for it in the next few weeks, how many times you or another women says “sorry” when what should be said is “excuse me”. The suggestion is that we feel undeserving, and so say “I’m Sorry” for taking up your time, for taking up space, for thinking that I might have something to contribute. Sheryl Sandberg was really talking about this when she said “we’ve got to get women to sit at the table.” She talked about how she went to a conference room for a meeting and the women were not sitting at the conference table, they were sitting around the table in the extra chairs against the wall. They were doing this even though there were empty seats at the conference table. She felt that a big piece of why we don’t take a seat at the table is because we don’t want the label of “bossy” and the other “B” word when we take the lead. We shouldn’t be afraid to be as ambitious as men. We should ask for what we want – the raise, the promotion, to take the lead. We shouldn’t be afraid to be told we have a beautiful smile. So I am ending this with my most favorite quote by Marianne Williamson because – How dare any of us settle for less when the world is waiting for us to be remarkable! “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

What Does The Term, “The sky’s the limit” Mean To You?

What does the term, “the sky’s the limit” mean to you?  For me, it is where the comfort zone meets “what else is possible?”

What is stopping you is the unwillingness to live beyond this reality.

  – Unknown

It is an extension of “what is possible”, that is beyond what “normal” is for me. It is where all of the magic is, approaching life from that attitude.  All our of limitations are self installed.  We choose them either by accepting them from someone else, or our own inner critic forming them after a failure. The sky is not the limitation, we are. We see these limitations in our professional life, our personal life and our spiritual life. Some of these limitations come from our culture, through the “roles” we play with our friends and family.

Being on a spiritual path does not prevent you from facing times of darkness.  But it teaches you how to use the darkness as a tool to grow.

  – Unknown

When we go on a hero’s journey, the walls that we have built around us, to limit us, get torn down. When you take any really great story, you find within it what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey. My two favorite stories are “Star Wars” (the first three with Luke) and “Lord of The Rings”. 

The main character (Luke or Frodo) is going through a “normal” or boring life. Nothing much is happening. Then there is a call to adventure (Luke has R2D2 show up and Frodo has Gandalf), something new is introduced into the characters life.  This alters the hero’s destiny. At first the hero refuses the call to adventure – this isn’t for me. I can’t get involved. This can sometimes be because the hero knows that the role that you play within your family, or tribe will be forever changed once you cross the threshold.

Our worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace.  And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.

  –  Jerry Bridges

Then the hero encounters the mentor – someone who gives advice and gets him ready. It could be someone supernatural, mystical or angelic. The hero crosses the threshold – leaves home and enters into the adventure. There are tests, allies and enemies are encountered in the journey which teach the hero a lot about him or herself. Plan A and possibly Plans B and C fail, as the hero experiences setbacks and has to rethink how to proceed.

Because you are alive, everything is possible.

  – Nhat Hanh

The hero has faith which leads them to access higher levels of knowledge and abilities to meet the tests with. The hero sees their limitations and ultimately has to defy and defeat them in order to pull through. The setbacks all lead to the ultimate crisis of life or death, where the hero struggles to complete their destiny (Luke battling the evil emperor and Frodo himself and the ring). Now the hero gets the reward – they have won out over the enemies. Many times the loses are mourned even as the victory is celebrated. The hero begins the journey back home, forever changed by the journey. The old limitations of what the hero thought they were capable of have changed. They have been forever transformed.

The reason people awaken, is because they have finally stopped agreeing to things that insult their soul.

  –  Unknown

I believe that we all take numerous hero’s journeys. We take them in our personal lives, our professional lives and our spiritual lives. We take small journeys and we take “dark night of the soul” journeys. Each time we need to transform our lives, we take a hero’s journey. We reinvent ourselves, we improvise, adapt and overcome our self made limitations. We get creative, we become flexible and adjust as we experience paradigm shifts.

There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

  – Bruce Lee

So don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon. Use your imagination and creativity, to discover that the possibilities of your world are limitless.

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How Does One Become A Butterfly?

A caterpillar must endure a season of isolation before it turns into a butterfly.  Embrace the time you have alone, it will only make you stronger.

  – Steven Aitchison

Life is a journey of learning and discovery.  As young children we take in everything we can learn.  We are authentically ourselves.  Somewhere along the line of growing up, we learn to hide who we really are.  To keep ourselves safe.  To avoid ridicule.  To be the perfect person, so that we will be loved.   We have many reasons why we start hiding.  But there comes a time in our life, when we realize that in order to be truly happy, we have to transform back into who we really are.  We need to become the person we were created to be.

Butterflies can’t see their wings.  They can’t see how truly beautiful they are, but everyone else can.  People are like that as well.

  – Unknown

Transformation gives you the chance to rewrite the story of who you are and who you are capable of being. There are many things in our life that we give negative meanings to. But what if you gave pain the definition that it shows you that which is not for you? This would be a positive thing to know – what doesn’t belong to me or my life. Envy is another word that has a bad rap. What if envy simply shows you things which you may wish to empower in your life? That would be a great thing to know – things I want in my life and can empower myself to obtain.

To be nobody but yourself is a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself – means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – and never stop fighting.

  – E.E. Cummings

The being that is forming in the cocoon is no longer a caterpillar. For the caterpillar the past is truly a place of reference. It can no longer live there, because that body is gone. Within the cocoon the caterpillars body literally melted into goo, and then formed a totally new body. As the butterfly’s body grows into its new shape, it becomes cramped as the wings want to expand out. It isn’t a place of residence for the butterfly, so it has to break loose and spread it’s wings and find a new home.  Even though everyone who knew you as a caterpillar is expecting you to still be a caterpillar, you can’t go back.  You have to fight to go forward, staying true to who you now are.

I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.

  – Mary Oliver

The butterfly had to break out of the old place of residence and begin a brand new journey, where everything is experienced for the first time. It must break open its heart to begin this journey, because it has to trust its intuition for flying, for finding food, for making a new home. Literally everything for the butterfly is a brand new experience.  You have to have the courage to follow your own heart and intuition.

You will know you made the right decision when you pick the hardest and most painful choice but your heart is at peace.

  – Unknown

Transformation is a scary business. Because I am a perfectionist, I hate doing something new for the first time. I am doing the best I can with my posts, knowing that I will have spelling errors or grammar mistakes in my writing. I can proofread this a dozen times and the minute I publish I find something I missed. When I sponsor the post, I can’t make any changes, so anything I missed becomes a permanent part of the post. I am living with being imperfect in order to just get the post out there.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

  – Steve Jobs

When we listen to our intuition, we are right where we are meant to be.  We can impact the people that we share the world with.  It may be a tiny corner of the world.  Or we could be like a comet and affect the entire world as we fly through the night sky.  It isn’t up to us to say how much of an impact we will make.  It is up to us to live life as fully as we can.  To follow the dreams that have been written in our hearts.  To break out of the comfort zone and spread our wings and fly.  It doesn’t even matter if we know where we are or where we are going.  It only matters that we fly.  That we soak up the sun.  The we soar with the breezes.  And if we can do that, then whatever we leave behind will be sufficient.

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Live Your Dreams

You can't dream when you are struggling to survive

This one hits home for me. When I was 13 yrs old, my mom left my stepdad for another man. We moved from San Jose where we lived in a three bedroom home and used the garage as a fourth bedroom into a motel room with one bedroom which was my moms. There were seven kids who slept in the living room. All we had was the clothes we could fit into a pillow case.

We were surviving on welfare food, which wasn’t sufficient to last the entire month. Then my mom’s new boyfriend disappeared and we could no longer afford the rent. My mom started bringing back to our place men she picked up in bars in order to pay for the motel room. When that wasn’t enough we moved to a campground. We were homeless for several months while she reconciled with my step father and they saved to get us into a new home.

Dreams

How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable. – Seth Godin – Author and Speaker

Our dreams are calling us. Are we answering them or putting them to voice mail, because we don’t want to have that inner conversation with ourselves. What causes us to put things on hold? How many of your dreams do you have in voice mail waiting for a return call?

Future

Sometimes we need to let go of how we thought our life should be. Instead we need to embrace the life that our soul is calling out for. The life we were meant to live.
It is scary. It can feel like we are all alone.
But maybe the journey is all about unbecoming who we are, so that we can become who we are meant to be.

Encouragement

“One of the most beautiful gifts in the world is the gift of encouragement. When someone encourages you, that person helps you over a threshold you might otherwise never have crossed on your own.” – John O’Donohue

There are times in our lives, when we see the full vision of possibilities for our lives. We see it when we are young and full of hopes and dreams. We haven’t yet been taught the false teachings of “you aren’t enough”. Not smart, pretty, rich, skinny, etc…, enough. As adults we get glimpses of it and immediately the inner voice starts in. It starts in with all the possible obstacles or responsibilities that you have. Things which will prevent you from achieving that dream. A warning sign that says “Stop – Danger, Bridge Out”.

Road

The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. – Oprah Winfrey