Answer Your Soul’s Call to Adventure

A fairy tale is always a hero’s journey.  It is about trials that burn off everything that isn’t the real you.  It is about exposing to the light everything you have hidden, the mystery of who you really are.

It is a difficult path to travel, but for those that go down the road of “Once upon a time” you not only confront dragons, you recover the treasures of your true life.

There comes a time in life where we realize that we need to leave the comfort and safety of what we have created for our lives.  When we realize that the comfort zone is just another word for a cage that we locked ourselves in to be safe from our fears.

Looking from the outside in, see that the time has come to go within and discover who we really are.  We have to stop being scared and just go for the life we secretly have been dreaming about all of our lives.

Letting go of who we are.  Surrendering to who we are meant to be.  Doing this without any idea of what we will discover or guarantee that we will even be able to complete the journey – that’s what this surrender is all about.

It is time to accept that we are powerful beyond reckoning.  That we have big work to do.  And the only way to do the work, is to go deep within our inner darkness.  Inside this darkness we are going to stumble.  We are going to fall down into our own personal abyss.

What we will find there, is our power.   It is time to bring it forth and expose it to the light.

Christopher Reeves said, “A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.”  I like to think that he was drawn to play Superman because of all of the positive qualities that comic book hero had.  He stood for truth and justice.  He never gave up.  He loved deeply.  He used his powers to help others.

When we go through the hero’s journey, we go through the valley of death.  We die to our past lives in which we didn’t live from strength and wisdom.  We are reborn from the fire of those tests.  We come back with the hero’s light – we become extraordinary.

We don’t go on this hero’s journey searching for a life purpose.  We go on this journey to set ourselves free from the limitations that our fears and our comfort zones have created for us.  We want to feel the rapture of being alive again.

We remember it as young children.  Before life started imposing its rules and restrictions on us.  Then we learned to squish our true selves into a small space so that we were not judged.  We put our innermost being down deep into the abyss.  We put guards of fear of not being enough all around it, so that it would never run free again.

But nothing can keep our innermost self in the abyss forever.  It cries out through our heart.  It whispers in our intuition.  It screams out in our dreams.  It is the triumph of our souls voice over the power of our fears.

Even in the journey of the dark night of the soul, we can be givers of our light.  We take our intimate beliefs along with us on our journey and those beliefs will take us always into sharing our souls light.

In the end,

all journeys are spiritual,

and our spiritual natures will always shine from within.

We enter the journey through the storms of winter, and we return in the beginning of spring with new growth in our lives.  Just as the seasons turn, so does our road.  We continue from spring into summer and autumn, where we rest, reflect on what has now become a new comfort zone and the realization that winter storms are returning.

A new journey is about to begin.

Like the butterfly, we began as a caterpillar in the spring.  We ate our way growing and expanding through summer and in the fall we begin to spin our chrysalis.  In the winter we enter inside to begin our transformation in our journey to once more give our life to something bigger than we are.

Overcome Fear, Behold Wonder!

Updated 12/27/2018

There comes a time when the desire for transformation demands action.  Never let your fears be the deciding factor, of taking that action.

“Obstacles are like wild animals.  They are cowards, but they will bluff you if they can.  If they see you are afraid of them, they are liable to spring upon you; but if you look them squarely in the eye, they will slink out of sight”  – Orison Swett Marsden

Action is required when the change comes from within you.  When you are facing the choice to enter through the gates of greatness, it is an internal change that is initiated by your desire to live a fully engaged life.  This change requires of you, just a touch of insanity because it means that you will no longer live a life of conformity.  It requires from you that you recognize and let go of beliefs that no longer serve you.  You begin by setting intentions and making conscious designs of how you want to change your life.  Something new is birthed into existence when this happens.  Like the caterpillar you emerge from the chrysalis a new creation.

“Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing”  – Theodore Roosevelt

There comes a time when the caterpillar has to make the chrysalis.  He has to overcome the fear of what is going to happen when he closes it off with himself all wrapped up inside of it.  He has to let go of the fear of how will he be able to breathe?  How will he eat?  What happens if it something goes wrong?  How will he get out?

“It is when I struggle that I strengthen.  It is when I am challenged to my core, that I learn the depth of who I am” –   Dr. Steve Marboli

It is the struggle of the transformed butterfly to emerge from the chrysalis, that the wings become fully functional.  If you “help” it to escape, it will deform the wings and it will never be able to fly.

“Having courage does not mean that we are unafraid.  Having courage and showing courage means we face our fears.  We are able to say, “I have fallen, but I will get up”  – Maya Angelou

There is an analogy that tells of how an arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward.  When life is dragging you back with difficulties, it means it’s going to launch you into something great.  So just focus, and keep your aim true.  I have always loved this story, because it is by the action of pulling back the arrow that it launches you through the gates of greatness.  It is such a great analogy of understanding that struggle is part of advancement.

“Fear, to a great extent is born of a story that we tell ourselves”  – Cheryl Strayed

I don’t know how many of you remember back to the late 70’s, but there was a gas crisis. We had lines around the block to get gas, and you could only get it on even or odd days depending on your license plate number.  It was around this time that all but two states, decided that we had to pump our own gas, it was all self service.

Now I had never had to pump gas.  I told myself this big fear story about how I was going to do it wrong, blow up the service station or something equally horrible.  For quite a while I got away with leaving my husband with the almost empty tank, until one day it happened.  The tank was on empty and I had to pump my own gas.  Well as you can guess it was simple and easy.  I didn’t pour gas all over the station, I didn’t implode, nothing caught on fire.  I laughed about my fears when I drove away – it was just a made up story, by my fear of the unknown.

“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life:  Overcome fear, behold wonder”  – Richard Bach

That is what I learned from that experience.  99% of your fears are just like mine.  They are a story of “what if’s”. What if this or that happens.  And they are just as silly as mine was.  Fear isn’t meant to shut you down – it is meant to wake you up to wonder.  I had let this fear limit how far I could drive.  I had let it stop me from filling up my car with gas.  I have always pulled that memory out when fears start getting in my way.  Fear was making me a prisoner, and overcoming that fear set me free. Behold wonder!

“You gain strength and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.  You must do the thing you think you cannot do”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

Free to go have adventures, to embrace transformation and change in your life. To take actions, which is to take risks.  Risk is always present when you are doing something that you don’t know how to do.  This is what bravery and courage is, not the absence of fear, but the ability to push through the fear and by taking action, to do it anyway.  There is nothing more liberating that doing something you didn’t think that you could do.  No matter how simple or easy it actually turns out to be.

“Thinking will not overcome fear, but action will”  –  W. Clement Stone

It is the actions that move you forward. Actions say who you are, whereas the words, or talking about something, simply say who you want to be.  What you have to remember is that your lives are a message to all of those around you.  They see the actions that you take, how you go forward in the world, and that is how they see you.

Think of the iconic movie characters.  Rocky who fights against the odds and wins.  Indiana Jones who will find the treasure, then have to fight the bad guys and win against impossible odds.  John Wayne; The Lone Ranger; Darth Vader; Luke Skywalker; Bilbo Baggins; Gandalf; the Mandalorian; James T Kirk; Khan – when you say the names, you see the characters that they represent.  The reputations that the characters earned, by the actions that they each took – both good and bad.  Each one has a message to the world.  They have become archetypes of certain attributes.  Each name invokes a certain feeling in you.

“Adversity introduces a man to himself” –  Albert Einstein

Think about Luke Skywalker and how when he was training with Yoda and entered the cave. He asked what he would find inside and Yoda said, “whatever you take in with you”.  He took into the cave his fears of Darth Vader, but what did he see when he took the mask off of Darth Vader?  His own face.  His own fears that he would become what he hated.  That somehow he would fail and become evil too.  That is the story of his fear.  When he faced that fear, he saved not only himself, but also his father Darth Vader.  He inspired his father to change back from his evil ways.

“Your fear is 100% dependent on you for its survival”  – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Your souls dreams lead you into transformation.  This transformation requires that you change.  Change requires that you initiate some sort of action to make everything happen.  When you are inspired by your purpose to seek change and transformation, your mind transcends the limitations or bonds that have kept you prisoner, held in place.  The whole world opens up to you.  You see things that you missed, because of the blinders your fear had in place.

“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to help you grow”  – Caroline Myss

Your talents and gifts come alive and expand to fill in the void created by facing your fears.  These gifts are that which is needed for transformation.  The caterpillar builds the chrysalis.  Then the divine takes over, as the caterpillar physically changes into the butterfly. The action of the caterpillar has to happen first.  So it is for us.

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

You feel the need to transform.  You take the needed action to start the process.  Then you transcend your limitations.  Your gifts come alive and you begin to see the divine purpose you have in being  here.  You discover that you are a greater person than you ever dreamed you could be.

Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside of you that the world is waiting for.  That the gifts you have been given are required in this time and place.  That these gifts can help you to overcome any obstacle.  Life has a habit of pulling out of you what is needed.  So don’t just dream about the life you wish you had.  Go out and make that life real.  Let your faith be bigger than your fears.

“What you fear will  not go away by constantly thinking about it.  It will go away when you see it for exactly what it is”  – Unknown

Just remember how silly I was to let the fear of pumping gas stop me from having adventures by limiting how far I could travel.  Every time you face a fear, you can laugh with me at how silly we are to let fear stop us for even 5 minutes.

Who Are You?

Have you ever been so lost in a relationship trying to be who they wanted, that you lost yourself?

Have you ever been in a job, where you were constantly biting your tongue so that you didn’t lash out at a coworker or your boss who was bullying you?

Did you spend your childhood trying so hard to be the perfect child, that you pushed and pushed all of your rebellious self into a tight box and nailed that lid shut?

We are only as blind as we want to be.

  – Maya Angelou

I think that most of us could answer yes to at least one of those, if not all three.  I spent my entire childhood trying to be the perfect daughter with my mom, because my experience of her was that if you made her mad, she would divorce you (she was married five times). 

When I met my husband, I spent the first few years trying to be the perfect wife to him, and the perfect mother to our children.  I put unrealistic expectations on myself.  I exhausted myself and the not so funny thing about it, is that my husband never voiced or indicated in any way that this was something that he wanted.  I have had jobs where Sunday night I got stomach pains or headaches just thinking about going into work on Monday and having to deal with that toxic environment.

Why do we do this to ourselves?  Why do we allow these kinds of situations to develop?  Are we actually setting them up in the first place?  Why do we stay in them way too long?

You can’t change what’s going on around you until you start changing what’s going on within you.

  – YourTango

What I discovered in myself, was a pattern of behavior on my own part.  I was taking subconsciously that pattern of behavior with my mother “being the perfect child so you are liked and loved” and I transferred it to my husband and children.  I even transferred it to work, thinking that if I just worked harder, smarter, faster, they would like me and treat me better.

You have the ability to quickly change your patterns of thought, and eventually your life experience.

  – Abraham Hicks

The first step to change is to recognize your patterns.  We all have them.  They are a part of our human nature. They begin in childhood.  Most of us had that one parent that we wanted and worked at getting to love us.  We wanted their attention.  We did whatever we had to in order to get it.  Sometimes it was being the perfect child.  For others it might have been being rebellious, because being the perfect child didn’t get you any attention.  You had to be the squeaky wheel.  Maybe you were the family clown, to make everyone laugh and defuse your environment in some way.  What is the pattern of behavior that you had with that parent?  Now look at your life now.  How is that pattern of behavior showing up for you?

Once you see the pattern, how it shifts and changes in every aspect of your life, you can begin to shift it.  I called my pattern Cami – because she is so good at camouflage.  I might think that I have rooted her out, but she still shows up.  The thing about patterns is that they have become masters at disguise.  So I am always finding her same old pattern dressed up in different clothes.  When I find her, then I can scoot her out the door, and work on changing the situation that she has created in my life.  It has become a kind of game.  I don’t fail at shifting my pattern.  She just keeps camouflaging how she shows up, and I get to play detective and find her.

Everything has changed and yet, I am more me than I’ve ever been.

– Iain Thomas

Now that I know and recognize the patterns, I see how I have set things up in the past to repeat the pattern of behavior.  It was what I was comfortable with.  I know how to act and react within it.  I find that now I recognize it before it sets itself up.  I can sidestep most of it, because I now know what to look for. 

The 3 C’s in life: Choice, Chance, Change. You must make the Choice, to take the Chance, if you want anything in life to Change.

– via Curianocom

I recognize that “the everything that has changed” is me.  I changed my own self destructive behavior by recognizing the signs before I activated it.  When you know what to look for, it is surprising how clearly you can see it.  My husband used to clean carpets for a living.  Everywhere we went, he would look at the carpets and comment on them.  It was automatic behavior.  We all have it, and making very small incremental changes to that automatic behavior shifts it into new and different patterns.  Slowly over time after he no longer had that job, he just stopped noticing whether a buildings carpets were clean or not.  It was no longer a focus of his behavior.  

One of the happiest moments in your life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change.

  – Unknown

So when you look at your own daily routine, what is holding your patterns of behavior in place?  What small incremental changes can you make in your life?  Do you have the courage to let go of the “safety net” your patterns are holding for you?  Do you have the courage to do something different?  Do you have the courage to release the chains of patterns of behavior that are anchoring you in place?  Great changes in our lives don’t come from remaining in our comfort zone, and it takes courage to walk away from the certainty of our lives, for the unknown that beckons to us.

At some point in your life you’re going to have to start demanding what you deserve and be willing to walk away if what you require can’t be provided.

– r.h.sin

 It really is as simple as looking at your life.  You know what you don’t want, even if the knowing what you do want part is not totally clear.  You know what you have done to create what you now have.  You also know that getting something different is just as simple as asking and then implementing actions to achieve it.  You might have a harder time accepting that you deserve the best things in life.  But you do.  So stop settling for less.  If you still have parts of you buried, dig them up.  Get to know who you are at the most basic parts of you. 

Will it be easy?  Nope.  Worth it?  Absolutely.

  – Elite Daily

Be courageous enough to live the life that you have always dreamed about.  It might not happen overnight, but step by step, accepting what you deserve and working at the small changes, you will progress to living the life of your dreams.

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You Have The Power To Free Yourself

“Waking up to who you are requires letting go of who you imagine yourself to be”   – Alan Watts

You are on a spiritual journey of unlearning the fears created by your past life, and learning to accept yourself as who you really are.  At some point in your life, probably multiple times, you have let someone else tell us you were wrong to believe in the things you do.  They abandoned you.  They betrayed you.  They ridiculed you. They said and did hateful things.  They made you feel that you were not good enough, that you were stupid, a waste of space, not even useful as garbage.

“Whenever there is fear, there is opportunity.  When there is great fear, there is great opportunity”  – Andy Stanley

It may be that you didn’t live up to the expectations of your family, or at school or work, or with your so called friends.  So you became a victim and were abused, bullied, and treated disrespectfully.  Or it may be that they were so dysfunctional and unhappy that they didn’t know how else to treat you.  And you let it happen.  You believed them, you listened to them, and they shattered you.  Then in an act of self preservation you gathered up all of the broken pieces of yourself and put them deep inside a cage, so that no one could cause further destruction.

“To let go does not mean to get rid of. To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion, things come and go on their own”  – Jack Kornfield

Then your negative mind talk took up where the others left off.  It seeks to keep you inside of that cage, because it thinks by doing so you won’t be hurt again.  That it will be able to keep you safe.  But at some point that small child inside the cage starts making some noise.  It wants to be free.  It wants to come back into the light and start pursuing your dreams again.  At some point you start becoming conscious of this desire that is building up inside your soul  You have to start taking some risks.  You come to know that you can change your life. That it is a possibility, and not as hard as your mind wants you to think it is.

“Being strong means rejoicing in who you are, complete with imperfections”  – Margaret Woodhouse

In order to trust in the dreams, you go on a spiritual pilgrimage. A spiritual journey of discovering a path to happiness.  Of creating new paths of your own, breaking your own trail.  Of making changes even though they terrify you.  You discover doors to open that you never saw before.  You set yourself free from those shackles.  You used your key to unlock the cage you had locked yourself into.  You know in your bones that you deserve to be free and happy.

“Survival mode is supposed to be a phase that helps save your life.  It is not meant to be how you live”  – Michele Rosenthal

With every choice, with every small change you will go on a new heroes journey.  You begin to discover the possibility of a new life.  You stop being who you were and start uncovering who you really are.  Hope begins to find a home inside your soul again.  You know why the caged bird sings – because it’s about to experience true freedom.  You begin to love yourself without boundaries or restrictions.  You open up to the possibility of being loved, and loving others without boundaries.

“Hope is the magic elixir that energizes dreams, fuels possibilities, and lets you live beyond the limits of your historical thinking.  It is not a promise that something you want will happen – it is an invitation to enjoy the possibility of what you want while you and life negotiate the eventual outcome.  There is never a good reason not to hope!”  – Michael Neill

This begins the life of taking second chances.  It is the most powerful gift you can give yourself.  The opportunity to amplify your love.  To see life from the place of your restored hope.  To live a life of value, redeeming those qualities and values you abandoned.  To be made whole again.  To change the story of your life.  To expand out past your comfort zone, (the cage you imprisoned yourself in) and begin living a life of potential and possibilities.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance”  – Alan Watts

Close the chapter in the book that contains the story of your being a victim.  That might have been who you were when you lost your way.  But now with your transformational compass firmly in your hands you are navigating your way to start living a life of purpose and meaning.  You are climbing back up the mountain in your heroes journey, refined.  Like the phoenix rising from the ashes you take flight.  You are starting out on a new journey, a new sacred destination of fulfilling your destiny once again.

“Never be limited by other people’s limited imaginations.  If you adopt their attitudes, then the possibility won’t exist, because you’ll have already shut it out – you can hear other people’s wisdom, but you’ve got to re-evaluate the world for yourself”  – Mae Jemison

You look back at your life with gratitude, even for the stuff that was devastating.  You now see it was all a gift.  It bestows reverence on how God works with everything that happens, and turns it into something valuable.  It allows you to see the world through love, and creates these transcendent moments of awe that change you right down into the DNA of your cells.  You experience the world in a different way.  It becomes a daring adventure.  You become the brave hero exploring the new world.  Yes, you will fall down.  Yes, you will be hurt.  Yes, you will find yourself working to regain your vision.  But now you know that you can choose your thoughts.  That you can keep what brings you joy, peace, and happiness.  That never again will you find yourself having to imprison yourself to save yourself.  That you can release the things that make you suffer, let them take flight and be free.

“I wish for the same thing I’ve hoped for since the beginning.  I wish for a life so brave, so unpredictable, so full of unexpected joys and unforgettable love that no box could possibly contain all my memories.  Such a life won’t be perfect.  It’ll be something better.  It’ll be my own paradise”  – Patti Smith

Heart’s Destiny

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.  I want to know what you ache for, and if you dream of meeting your heart’s destiny – Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Orian Mountain Dreamer is one of my favorite writers.  I invite you to read her books, they are small but mighty.  The Invitation is what this quote is from.  The poem is a wonderful deep dive into important questions that probe who we are and why.

Your words have power.  When you hide how you feel, what you think, you are trying to live your life using someone else’s light.  You can’t find your way home that way.

• There is always some truth behind the words that are followed by “just kidding”.
• When you say, “I don’t know”, there is always some knowledge that you judge as being incomplete.  So, you say you don’t know – when in fact you do know something about it.
• When you say, “I don’t care” you are not being truthful.  You think if you put your emotions in a cage and don’t let them out, you can’t be hurt by them.  The reality is that you are hurting yourself.
• When you tell others that you are “ok” when you aren’t, you rob them of the opportunity to help you.

May you always be guided by the light that shines forth from within you – solitaryview

Life is always about the meaning that you give to it.  If you take a lamp as the analogy, your soul is the light inside the lamp.  The things that happen to you are the glass that surrounds the light.  That glass doesn’t matter, it is the heart and soul – the light that matters.

You tell yourself stories about the events in your life, to give some meaning to what is happening to you. Some of you are writing horror stories, or stories that leave you drained from your fears and worries.

Others are writing stories about the gifts they have received as they travel through life.  The gifts from the wonderful things that have happened to you, as well as the tragic things.

The best way to count your blessings is to look at life through a variety of lenses. To bring things into and out of focus. To look into the depths of your soul to see what the storms dredged up for you to look at.  When you sift through it all, you can let go of everything that doesn’t serve you.  You can realize the lessons you have been taught.  You can keep growing into who you came here to be.

There is a big difference between making something happen and forcing something to happen.  Forcing something to happen isn’t natural.  It is like forcing yourself into something that doesn’t fit.

Have you ever laid on the bed to force your stomach to be flat so you can get your jeans buttoned and zipped up?  Or forced your foot into a shoe that you loved, but doesn’t really fit?  You might be able to get the jeans fastened, but it hurts your stomach when you try to sit.  You might be able to walk in those shoes for a little while, but eventually you have to take off the shoes because they hurt your feet so badly.  The vanity of false beliefs leaving you with blisters isn’t a good way to live.

And I know how broken you are, how heavy you feel, but still, you have to find the light in you.  You have to hold on to it with care and never let it go, even if it drags you to the end of the world – r.m. drake

Making something happen is really all about taking small steps to bring into reality what you are dreaming of.  It is catching the light of your soul and holding it up into the darkness, so that you can see where to go.

It is taking the voice or dancing lessons because you want to be in theater.  It is taking leaps of faith when you don’t know how to do something.  It is going for the brass ring as the merry go round flies around and around.  It is learning a foreign language for a trip of a lifetime to a foreign land.

It is taking big, medium and small actions, not just dreaming about it.  You don’t just sit there doing nothing to make it happen.

Have you ever gone somewhere new and experienced Deja vu?  That feeling that what is happening at this moment, has happened before?

Have you ever learned something new, and it was just so natural and easy that you didn’t even need instructions to do it?

For me, it feels like something that I have dreamed about, is now happening in real life.  That my mind already knows and sees the connections, like it was programmed into being.  I think that when this happens, you need to pay attention.  That you are in that moment, doing something that is important, even if your mind doesn’t understand it.

The Words I Speak Are All in Languages I Do Not Speak

And yet, when you get here, you are not given instructions.  There are no diagrams about how you are meant to live each day or directions on how to assemble some semblance of happiness.  You are not even told what colors to paint your feelings or given a purpose and a reason for your life.  You have to make all of it up.  You have to make all of it up yourself – Iain S. Thomas, from “I Wrote This for You”

No matter if you are in the first month or the last month of the year, take the time to reflect on what the year so far has been for you.  To see the places where life has been a blessing.  To see the places where you let your dreams fall by the wayside.  Pick them back up.  Dust them off.  Find within them the things that you are looking for.  Go beyond your means to make them come true for you.  Draw down deep within the story of them and bring it into reality.  Transform the pain and regrets of this year and past years into the blessings and joy of a new year.

The journey of life teaches you that growth happens when the dream is bigger and brighter than you ever thought it could be.

In the pursuit of your dream, you will illuminate your heart, capture your mind, and free your soul from the small box that you held it in.

You will discover that there are hidden maps within your soul.  That there are clues and invitations to walk through doors that will open your mind up to things you never dreamed could be true.  But you can only make those kinds of discoveries when you listen to your heart.

That is my wish for all of you today.  That you listen to your heart; that you hear the whisper of your soul and find the dream that is so big, that you too can grow beyond who you are today and enrich the universe.

Curiosity Brings Satisfaction

“Curiosity is lying in wait for every secret” – Unknown

“Be curious always!  For knowledge will not acquire you:  you must acquire it” – Sudie Back

“The secret of making dreams come true can be summarized in four C’s.  They are curiosity, confidence, courage and constancy; and the greatest of these is confidence” – Walt Disney

“The future belongs to the curious.  The ones who are not afraid to try it.  Explore It.  Poke at it.  Question it and turn it inside out” – Skillshare.com

“Be curious, not judgmental” – Walt Whitman

“What if” becomes a mantra.

Creating a life filled with happiness and love starts with curiosity and self awareness – asking the right questions and not being afraid of the answers. Being 100% honest with yourself, will produce insight into not only the problem that presents itself, but the solution that comes from a new perspective. It is about looking under the facades that fears create, to delve deep and unseat those fears.

Approach every challenge in your life

from a loving peaceful curiosity of,

“what then?”

“I’m always curious to know about your past, because that’s the place from where you belong, and it will let me know how you built yourself” – Vishal Rastagi

“Curiosity, especially intellectual inquisitiveness, is what separates the truly alive from those who are merely going through the motions” –  Tom Robbins

Go Where There Is No Path, And Leave A Trail

Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley – Theodore Roethke

Everything you see in your life at this moment, is the result of choices you have made.  The door in the photo is clearly open, but you can’t really see the steps through it or what lies beyond it.  Some of the choices you have made in life, lead you in directions that you didn’t even know were there.

Sometimes behind the waterfall, there is a path into a valley that no one has discovered.

Sometimes we fall through a hole in the ground and discover a buried city.

Sometimes we have a flat tire on a desert road, with no spare tire to change it – and we find a dusty path that leads to a hidden cache of gold.

There is always a choice of following a paved road with lots of signs or walking down a dirt path.  To stay safe on the paved road or taking on the risk of the unknown dirt path and seeing for yourself the genius of the universal design for your life.

Or never trying to see what is behind the waterfall in the first place (it is dangerous and you might fall down and hurt yourself); to immediately climb out of that hole you fell into without exploring it (it’s probably full of spiders, snakes, and rats) and ignoring the possibilities of discovery all around you; to stay beside that car on the hot desert road and wait for someone to rescue you (so much more sensible than striking out on your own).

So, stop being so worried about the million and one things that can go wrong.  Start instead dreaming about, and getting excited about, what is around the next corner.

Whatever you chose to be the next destination, you should always aim just a little higher.  If you are aiming for the lower mountain, you won’t know if you could have climbed the higher one instead.

Don’t put off the higher mountain as your goal, thinking that you need to be realistic, that you need to go in small definable steps.  As the saying goes, “Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land on the stars”.   Don’t be afraid to get lost.  Even landing among the stars, changes you, your world, and maybe even the whole world.

No one saves us but ourselves.  No one can and no one may.  We ourselves must walk the path – Buddha

Friends, loved ones, mentors, teachers – they can all set you on what they think is the right path.  Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are wrong, and sometimes they are “almost” right.

It is up to you to decide what the correct life path is for us, at this point in your life.  No matter what path you take in life, no matter where you go or end up, you take a little bit of everyone you know with you.

Have you heard those voices in your head?  Your parents, your favorite aunt or uncle, your grandparents, those special friends from school – those voices that make insane comments about what is taking place in front of you?

Mine are these comedian’s talking commentary during a boring office meeting (picture the old men in the balcony from “The Muppets”).  My son Sam’s voice comes into play during movies, when they are doing anything military or medical, telling me they are doing it wrong.

I believe that you have at least three careers in your life, and that they can be completely different.

You shouldn’t confuse the path you are walking with the destination that you are going to.

Once I have mastered something, I get bored.  When I get bored, I know it is time to start exploring something new to learn, to have a new destination.

I am still walking my life path, the path of learning more about the world, about me, and what new sights are on the horizon.  There are times that the path can be a little blurry, because I haven’t yet discovered where the path is taking me.  So, I keep walking and I get curious.  I know that when the path gets crystal clear, I have a new destination and new life experiences coming into focus.

You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it – Paulo Coelho

This doesn’t mean that I am just sitting on the path waiting for it to define itself.  When I sit, it is like stepping off the deep end of the river and just sinking to the bottom.

If I sit, the world tries to define me.  To make me fit someone else’s mold, to do the things that they want me to do and be.  Then I lose myself, sitting submerged and wondering why I can’t breathe.

I have to take the time, the effort and the work to define the path, so that each step brings the focus sharper and more defined.  I have to swim back up to the surface of the river and determine which shoreline I want to step onto.

Sometimes when you are walking down the path, everything goes wrong.  A forest fire races through the valley and destroys all of the vegetation.  The river overflows its banks and takes out the bridge you were walking across.  A 40-car pile-up in the fog totals your car.

Sometimes what seems like a life ending event, is actually the first step on a new path.

You had expectations of where the path should be taking you, and so you were actually sleep walking down the side path.  Because of your expectations, that path might have led you to the correct destination, but without the right experiences.

Have you ever seen someone famous implode right after they achieved critical acclaim for their talents?  Hollywood, Politics, Musicians – we’ve all seen them reach a pinnacle of success, then drugs, alcohol, sexual exploitation – and down they tumble into scandal.

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

This is due to them not having strong enough roots to support their growth.  Somewhere along the path to finding themselves, they didn’t get lost.  They missed valuable life experiences that would have grounded their roots.  That would have forced them to grow deeper and discover more about who they were.

Because they didn’t have these valuable experiences, they allowed others even with the best intentions, to rescue them from falling on their face.  They covered things up. They didn’t let them experience the results of bad choices when they were small failures.  So, they just kept being rescued and didn’t learn the life skills of what failure really means.

What you will discover from failure is that sometimes it is the best thing that ever happened to you.

You see new ways to do something, which would never have happened if everything went according to plan.  You discover wonderful character traits that were only exposed because you felt you had no other choice than to force yourself to up your game.

My favorite movie scene is from “Facing the Giants” in the death crawl scene.  The player goes all of the way down the entire length of the football field, thinking that he is only trying to make it to the 50-yard line.  He couldn’t see where he was, and he was crawling with another player on his back.

At first the coach is only trying to get him to the 50-yard line, then he realizes the player has more in him than either of them knew.  You are like that player, capable of so much more.  It is the difficult parts of life that open up the possibilities of your tasting some of that greatness you have buried deep inside.

So, remember “to keep the mind even” – not letting doubts or over-confidence tilt us.

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper – W.B. Yeats

Each day is a new adventure in walking your chosen life path.  Each day you can walk it in wonder, looking to see what is going to cross your path today.

You can be curious.  You can slow down and actually see what is on your right side, your left side, and directly in front of you.  Don’t miss the flowers that you’ve never seen in that color or shape before.  Look for the squirrels, bunnies, little lizards laying on the warm rock and enjoying the heat of the day.  Rest when you are tired.  Walk in the moonlight or lay back and count the stars.

This is your life path, your journey.  The world is full of friends, lovers, and new brothers and sisters waiting to get to know you.  The destinations are fun to get to, to master some aspect of your life.  But really, life is lived on the path, during the step-by-step walking, dancing, singing, along the road to the newest destination.  So don’t forget to enjoy it.

The journey is – Your Happiness.

Serenity Is Peace Amid Life’s Storms

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Our Words Matter

And, yes, words matter.  They may reflect reality, but they also have the power to change reality – the power to uplift and to abase.

William Raspberry

I think that all of us heard the nursery rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but word will never hurt me”.  And all of us have been hurt by the words of others.  Sometimes the words of bullies as they seek the soft spot that will create pain.  Sometimes the words of loved ones, when we fight and say mean and hurtful things to those we love.     Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto did an experiment in a elementary school classroom in which he placed two jars of cooked rice.  Each day the kids in the classroom had to pass by these jars and say the words taped on the jar.  On one jar the words were “Thank You” and the other jar the words were “You Fool”.  After 30 days the jars were removed.  The jar with “Thank You” contained rice that looked like it had been cooked that morning, white and fluffy.  The other jar with the words “You Fool” had shrank into a black shriveled gelatinous mass.  Words have an energy that affect both the speaker and the listener.  

Words matter and the right words matter most of all.  In the end they’re all that remains of us.

John Birmingham

There are others words that matter.  The words that we say to ourselves in our heads.  Like “your so stupid” or “you always make the wrong decisions” or “You’ll never get it or do it right”. . , and so on and on.  Words that say that we are not good enough.  Never say words that make your body or your accomplishments in life a joke.  Stop name calling and self criticism to yourself, as well as others.  We are all at any moment in time doing the best we can, with what we know and understand in that moment.  We can all do and be better.  It requires us to be conscious of the words coming out of our mouths.  Surround yourself with positive, uplifting words.

You’re going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times.  But in the end, it’s always their actions you should judge them by.  It’s actions not words that matter.

Nicholas Sparks

Do we put actions to our words, our intentions to be better, to do better?  Do we keep trying to walk towards a better life, or when we trip and fall down do we sit there in lamentation and say it’s no use.  That we are who we are, and we can’t do it.  I always think of babies when they are learning to walk.  They tip over and over and over.  They fall so many times.  And each time they get up and try it again.  Although they can’t tell you, they are learning from each failure how to achieve balance.  It isn’t something learned on the first, second or even 50th try.  But they all – 100% of them keep trying.  And once they are walking it seems like almost instantaneously they are running.  They don’t let anything hold them back.  Do we put the same kind of actions to the words that we speak?

No matter what people tell you it’s words and ideas that can change the world.

Robin Williams

Just as words can create wars, they can also create positive change in the world.  Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” words changed the world.  Look at what has happened in the past few years with the movements that have been created to bring something positive out of their own pain as survivors, or of families of those who lost loved ones.  Drugs, gun violence, racism, those sold into sexual slavery, sexual harassment/assault – all have created hashtag movements – #MeToo –  #NotOneMore – #TakeAKnee – #BlackLivesMatter – #BringBackOurGirls – and so on.  Your views of what was done to try and make positive change may not agree with all of the attempts to find social justice, but they do prove that words and ideas can change the world.

In every encounter in life we either give life or drain life.  Their are no mutual exchanges.

Brennan Manning

Always remember that your words carry weight and bearing in the lives of others.  Choose them wisely.  When we speak words of hate, we find ways to support those words.  We actually see the world through a “lack” mentality.  We blame all of our problems on “Them” – whatever group “Them” is.  We see the world through that lens and it distorts what we see to fit the viewpoint we have adopted. 

The same is true of having a positive outlook on the world and the changes that take place in it every day.  Every day someone’s smile brightens the life of another.  Every day a policeman or fireman or paramedic saves the life of someone.  Every day someone says no to drugs.  Every day someone refuses to join a gang and live a life of violence.  And every day someone who has been caught up in a world of drugs, alcohol and violence says no to continuing to live that lifestyle.  The life we life and the world that we see is viewed through the lens that we have created.  At any moment in time we can change the lens.  Right now at this moment, someone is reading or seeing something that moves them to change that lens.  To start one more time living a life that brings positive change not just to their life, but those around them, spreading it to the whole world.

. . . words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions think . . ,

Words Matter Week, 2014

Each day we design the life that we are living.  All of the small daily decisions add up to the day we live.  It is so easy to get caught up in the news.  Depending on the stations we listen to we are fed a diet of everything that is wrong in the world, from a specific viewpoint that always says that the other guy is wrong.  We don’t debate ideas from the news, we fling judgments against other.   We are subconsciously refusing to hear the emotions, the hurts, the “reasons” why they are saying those words that damage others lives.  

Words are free.  Its how you use them that may cost you.

Kushanwizdom

Words have meaning in the context in which they are spoken.  Say the word fire – at a family barbeque.  Say the word fire – in the workplace.  Say the word fire – in a crowded venue.  The family barbeque uses fire to cook the food, and it’s a normal safe word to say.  Say the word fire in the workplace, and you will get a negative emotion running immediately.  Either yourself or someone you know has just lost their job, their means of support for themselves and their family.  It is sad, threatening, humiliating, depressing, and so stressful, not only to the person fired, but to the whole office.  You also may feel guilty because you feel relieved that it wasn’t you, that your safe.  Say the word fire in a crowded venue and you have people fleeing for their lives.  You will see them stampeding towards any exit.  Some people will be so scared, traumatized or selfish that they literally run over others trying to escape.  Some people will become heroes, saving the lives of others, even if it means that they die trying.  Words in the context of how they are used reveal things about ourselves that we never knew or acknowledged before.

Your words matter.  A wider world is waiting to hear your story.  When will you have the courage to tell them?

Peter Thomson

You crafted the stage you’re now on, so that you’d be pushed on to discover your power, the dreams worth pursuing, and the passion to create them into reality. In the lives that we have lived so far, we have created illusions to support who we think we are.  To support who we are capable of being.  These illusions have created and supported your thoughts, beliefs, and expectations.  It is up to us to ask the questions from a place of curiosity as to what of our beliefs are illusions.  To question how we gathered these thoughts and facts into truths that are somehow cemented into unbiased realities that we refuse to change. 

We live in a world of possibilities.  We all have potential that we haven’t fully plumbed or realized.  Facts change every day.  Every day some new scientific discovery is made.  They used to say that man couldn’t fly.  That if God wanted man to fly he would have given him wings.  It was a fact.  Then curious men created planes, rockets, hot air balloons, space ships and so on.  Then flying through the sky became a cemented fact.  Every new “truth” discovered requires that we change a previous truth.  

Curiosity creates the possibility of a new word, or truth.  Words give us a trail to follow.  Intention brings action to the words and creates new truths, new meanings to the words.  It creates a life journey of discovery, of continually learning new things not just about ourselves, but our world.  As the Star Trekkers say, “To go boldly where no man (or woman) has gone before”.  Stay curious, stay hungry for more, live in the moment, and most of all create peace and happiness in your life.

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Dreamers Touch The Stars And Change The World

For many people, authentic life starts at the time of death – not our own, but someone else’s – Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

This is so true for me.  It was the murder of my nephew that changed my whole life.  Up until that time my lived was lived by following what others had either taught me or expected of me.

The lesson I learned from my mother that drove me, was to have a career that earned a great income so that I would not be like her and end up homeless with her children.  In her mind her only option was to return to a marriage that she had left behind because it would provide support for her children.

At first after my nephew died, it was all about helping my sister survive the storm of grief that ripped her world into tiny pieces that we couldn’t put back together again.  Then once we all knew that she while she wasn’t fully recovered, she was surviving and learning what her new life would be, it was time to deal with my own grief.

I knew that I wanted to bring something positive out of his death and so I started writing my way through my own changing and evolving world.  I had wanted to be a writer since I was a small child.  But I didn’t have any confidence to begin the journey.

Each time my heart and soul drew me into that space I had a ready excuse as to why I couldn’t do it.  I have four children to raise, a fulltime career and husband to take care of.  So, I would lie to myself about the reason why I didn’t have the time to write.

People will kill you over time, and how they’ll kill you is with tiny harmless phrases like “Be Realistic”  – Dylan Moran

First it was when the kids were all in school, then I would have time to write.  Then it was when they all graduated high school, then I would have time to write.  Then it was taking care of my dad who had retired early with disabilities, so now I had a new obligation to put off this dream of writing my own stories.

Always there was something more important to be done.  Besides I told myself, be realistic, “no one will want to read what you write”.  As I wrote my way through changing myself and posted it on my personal page, I kept being told by others to do more.

Self-confidence is something that Walt Disney had to have had.  He had businesses that failed and ended bankruptcy. He lost most of his employees and a big contract to a film producer that had been working with him.

What he discovered and what I discovered was that when one door closes another opens.  For him that lead to the creation of Mickey Mouse, who actually has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

For me, it was discovering that this dream that I had buried as not being worthy of was in fact possible.  The writing on my personal page, created the self-confidence to create the LemonadeMakers page here on Facebook and a website that we are slowly expanding to create even more material for our followers.

In the words of Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu: “When you let go of what you are, you become what you might be.”

As I walk this journey of following my dreams, I get ideas of where it might be taking me, but I don’t really know what I am becoming.  I still feel constantly as though I am in the chrysalis and becoming something new.  I am still being stretched into unknown realms.  I am constantly learning, adapting and regrouping.

I fall down on my face, but I keep getting back up.  I brush off the dirt and dust and look in the mirror.  It is the act of constantly letting go of the life I thought I should have, that I am able to embrace the life that is waiting for me.  It is the constant asking of these three questions that keeps opening new doors of discovery for me.

• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I would succeed at whatever I did, what would I want to do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I had millions of dollars in the bank right this moment, what would I do next?
• If I knew – honestly accepted – that I only had 6 months life to live in this life, what would I do in that time frame with my life?

When you ask those questions, sit with them in silence a few moments and see what bubbles up to the top for you.  When you boil some sort of vegetable, a lot of times there is this film of stuff that spreads across the water.  A sort of scum that I always ladle out of the boiling water.

This is what happens when we sit in silence with a question.  Our minds float up a denial.  It floats up a distraction.  If floats up fears.  Just look at them without judgement and scoop them out and let them settle into the earth.

Now return to the silence and contemplation and see what bubbles up next.  Write it down and see what else floats up to the top.  Keep writing until you have a list of things that you would do next.

Dreamer (n) A person who visions their ambitions to plant the seeds of their future

/ Dreams are realities in waiting/

Now take that list and put the items into two columns, column A and column B.  So that if you had 10 items, you would now have 5 lines with an answer under column A and B for each line.  Now ask yourself which draws me more – item A or item B and circle that answer for each of the five lines.  Now you should have 5 circled items left.  Do the same process, only now taking the first circle item to the next circled item and keep picking between the choices until you have only one circled item.  You now have the winning thing you would do next.

So, let’s say just for sake of example it was to learn to fly a plane.

Now google local flying instructions and make appointments to interview them.

Pick one and take your first lesson.

It’s really that simple to let go of who you are, a dreamer with no action taken to accomplish his/her dreams, and a dreamer who makes a phone call and gets into a plane and takes their first lesson.  If it turns out that you discover flying isn’t something that “rings your souls bell” then go back to your list and go through the items again to see what else might be the next dream to accomplish.

Being A Warrior of True Strength

What I love about this quote with the photo I found, is the dichotomy of how part of her seems to be like the ancient stone and part of her is golden and light filled, looking like she is still alive fighting her battles.  When we are fighting a desperate battle, sometimes it feels like we can’t take one more step.  Like we have turned to stone.  Like the internal battle between what we know we have to do (taking the next step) and how we feel (we can’t move another step) is literally dividing us and tearing us in two.

Remember how far you have come, all the battles you have won, the fears that you conquered, and tell that person who is trying to bring you down to go to hell.

  – Unknown

We all have several groups or individuals who tear us down.  Those well meaning friends and loved ones who don’t want to see us get hurt, so they tells us that we can’t or shouldn’t try to be successful in our chosen endeavor.  That we are risking too much.  That we are doomed to fail.  That it is impossible, so why take the chance of evitable failure?

Be the person who stays strong even when you have every reason to break down.

  – Unknown

Then there is that group that just can’t bear for someone to be successful and so they tear down others to make themselves feel better.  They are too afraid to take any kind of risk that would have the potential of making them look bad.  Bullies fall into this category.  They can’t stand seeing someone better at something than they are, so they tear you down whenever you show any desire to have a better life or be a better person.

Our greatest battles are those with our own minds.

  – Jameson Frank

And lastly the worst group of all, our own minds.  That voice inside of our head that tells us all of the reasons why we shouldn’t try.  That reminds us of every failure we have had starting at birth and going forward through time to this very moment.  That tells us the horror story of everyone who has tried and failed in the history of mankind.  That voice that will not shut up and that we can’t escape from.

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

  – Margaret Thatcher

It doesn’t matter how many battles we fight and lose.  It doesn’t matter how many battles we have to fight over and over again.  What matters is that we fought. That we learned something from it.  That we not only survive the battle, but that we thrive after we have either won or lost it.  I heard this analogy and I loved it.  Everything comes out in the wash!

Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.

  – German Proverb

Every problem that we see as something that will take us out of the battle, that seems insurmountable, think of the problem like a washing machine.  The problem may twist us in a knot, it may spin us around until we lose our balance and fall down.  It may knock us down the hillside, and as we roll through the mud, as the rocks cut at us, and the nettles sting us, in the end, we will come out cleaner, brighter and better than before we entered the wash.  This is because “everything comes out in the wash”.  Meaning that coming out the other side, meaning that whether we win or lose, we were not defeated.  We are only defeated when we quit.

In a society that profits from your self doubt, liking yourself is a rebellious act.

  – Unknown

I love this!  All you have to do is watch commercials to see how profitable self doubt is.  We are taught to have a “lack mentality”.  The saying that you can’t be rich enough or skinny enough, or beautiful enough.  That we need to spend more money on things, to have the latest cars, the latest gadget, to sculpt our bodies with surgery, to move to a bigger and more expensive home, to ask our doctor for the latest designer drugs that have more side effects than the issues they are supposed to cure.  All ways to make us happy, when none of those things will make us happy.  The place to start is to love ourselves and then build from that space the life that spreads that happiness out into the world.

When life demands more of people than they demand of life – as is ordinarily the case – what results is a resentment of life almost as deep-seated as the fear of death.

 – Tom Robbins

I was asked today what LemonadeMakers is all about.  This quote really states it pretty well.  When my nephew was murdered, and when anyone in life has such a life shattering moment occur, you really have two choices.  You can demand more of yourself, and surmount the problem.  If you don’t, then the second choice is defaulted to.  You fall into resentment, victimhood, depression, etc. . , you stop living life and you start existing until death takes you out of life.  I didn’t want our family to fall into that deep crevasse and be buried alive until they died.  I wanted us to transform what had happened to us, into something that happened for us.  I wanted to bring something positive out of that debilitating experience and share it with you.

Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

  – Charles Swindell

Successes in life come from struggles.  The butterfly has to fight to release itself from the chrysalis.  If you open it up, the wings become deformed and it can’t fly.  We are the same.  The fight to transform life’s lemons into lemonade is what strengthens us and makes the transformation more than a temporary change.  When we have struggled to fight the inner demons; when we have fought the uphill battle of addiction; when we have taken step after step through the mud and swamps of personal failures – we know that we will never, ever, go back there.  That we will never again, ever, allow anyone to make us feel like we aren’t worthy of a seat at the table.

“Too many times we stand aside

And let waters slip away

’til what we put off ’til tomorrow

Has now become today

So don’t you sit upon the shoreline

And say you’re satisfied

Choose to chance the rapids

And dare to dance the tide . . “

  – Unknown

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Who Are You Becoming?

We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.

  – Max Depree

I love to read great books.  I have love affairs with the characters, watching them undergo their transformational hero’s journeys through the pages to the end of the story.  I get great ideas from the authors words, that send me speeding down the side roads of my own life.  Every year I look back at what in my life I shed like an old skin, and what ways I have changed as I try to improve my own life.

The most important question to ask is, “What am I becoming?”

  – Jim Rohn

I have a rule, that I can’t bring a new thing into my house, unless I let go of something that is already there.  I love to send boxes to the goodwill or some other second hand store.  I think about the clothes I give away as going to a new person who will enjoy them just as much as I did.  I think about the books I have read, laughing and crying my way through them and how they will stir the emotions of another reader.

I love the person I’ve become, because I fought to become her.

  – Kaci Dianne

In this same way, I look at my beliefs, my habits, my lifestyle.  When I want to get healthier, work on improving my finances, grow in my own self knowledge, I realize that in order to make these transformational changes in my life, I have to let go of something that is no longer serving me.  I have to step outside the comfort zone and pay the tolls to walk down a new path, to undertake a new journey.

I know not who I am, simply that I am forever becoming exactly what I am meant to be.

  – Becca Lee

There is so much more to us than we are aware of.  I like the word developing.  Like the developing of film.  When we look outside and take in a scene, there are certain things that attract our attention.  We miss most of the scene we are looking at because we simply see what our filters let us see.  But if you snap a photo and enlarge it and go over it and over it, there is so much more there than we were aware of.  If you were to grid out the photo and examine each block of the grid, you would probably see insects, birds, small animals and lots of plants.  You would look deeply into the shadows to see what is hidden in the semi darkness.

Dear Self,  This is going to be your year.  So dust off your sh*tkickers and let’s get started.  All my love, Me

  – Unknown

Taking that same view into our own personal lives can be a real eye opener.  We are all worthy of being fully developed into the magnificent beings that we are capable of being.  I remember that when I was growing up I had two of my sisters and my brother develop into artists through classes in school.  I can’t draw a stick figure and I was always jealous.  My mom always wished she could draw and paint like they could.  Sometime in her early 50’s she was talked into taking an art class with her best friend.  I have hanging on my wall in the living room a painting that she did.  It is amazing that what she discovered and developed from one art class, is that she could in fact draw and paint.

Always go with your passions.  Never ask yourself if it’s realistic or not.

  – Deepak Chopra

Inside of all of us are these amazing talents we don’t know we have.  We just haven’t taken the time and energy to do that thing we always wished we could do.  We just don’t have the confidence and courage to step out and take the chance that we might be really good at something that we think we are terrible about.  We just haven’t decided what is behind fears door #1, #2 or #3. 

Think of three things what you have always wanted to learn how to do – play a musical instrument, learn how to dance, learn a craft of some sort, paint, pottery, woodcraft – whatever it is.  Now take photos of those things and paste them on a piece of paper and then cut out some doors from a magazine and tape the doors over the three things you have always wanted to learn how to do.  Now just sit there and free write all of the “reasons” why you can’t learn about what is behind door #1, then do the same thing for door #2 and #3.

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life.  If you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it fullspeed.  Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it.  Lukewarm is no good.

  – Ronald Dahl

Now I am giving you a magic wand that is called enthusiasm.  I want you to waive it over the three doors and grant yourself one wish.  Open up the door that most calls to your heart and soul and write down how you will feel when you are doing this thing.  I want you to write it in the present tense, that you have taken the classes or lessons and now you can play the piano, or dance the waltz or you just built a cabinet or rebuilt a car engine.  How happy and joyful do you feel?  Now go back to all of those “reasons” why you can’t do what is behind that door.  Cross through each one as you name the fear behind it.  Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of not being good enough and so on.  Now go out and learn what you need to know to bring that dream out from under the bed, dust it off, shine a light on it, and figure out how to do what you need to do to “get it done”.

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple.

Know what you are doing.

Love what you are doing.

And believe in what you are doing.

  – Will Rogers