The Best Is Yet To Come, In New Beginnings

“Always believe something wonderful is about to happen . . . ” – Unknown

“When the world says give up, hope whispers try one more time”  – Unknown

“A woman’s strength isn’t just about how much she can handle before she breaks.  It’s also about how much she must handle after she’s broken”  – Unknown

• Your first step, was because you wanted to get something or somewhere. 
• Your first word was because you wanted to communicate. 
• Your first day of school opened up a whole new world for you. 
• Going from grade school to junior high school to high school to college, each step opened a new door.  It also closed a door behind you. 
• Your first relationship, your saying “I do” and I will love you forever. 
• Seeing your newborn child for the first time, that beautiful baby that had been making its presence known for months being in your arms for the first time. 

Each first time, held a new promise, a hope of a dream coming true.  Each first was what you chose to make of it, to trust in the magic of a new beginning.

“A wise girl knows her limits.  A smart girl knows she has none”  – @getlanded

Dreams are the Children of your Soul

Every day we have a choice.  We can live in fear or move forward in faith.

  –  Billy Cox

What does it take to realize the visions and dreams our of soul?  It takes faith as Billy said, but it also takes making that faith become real with a solid belief.  That belief then needs to move us forward.  It takes action to start implementing steps that move us forward with the faith, that we can make it a reality.  As we take action, we develop practices and habits to change from where we started.  These actions propel us forward to where we want to go. 

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.  Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

  – Pamela Vaull Starr

Dreams create transformation in our life.  As we bring our dreams into reality, it requires change.  Some changes come about from letting go of what no longer serves us.  Some changes come about by stripping away who we thought we were, to become who we really are.  As the saying goes, “How does one become a butterfly?  You have to want to fly so much, that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”

Dreams are . . .  illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.

  – Unknown

Since the road of life is not a long flat road, but has hills and valleys, it also will take perseverance. This is because we will run across obstacles on our road.  Some things we can take a detour around; some things we will have to break out the tools to build a bridge over; and some things will require that we climb up and down the mountain.  So to perseverance of not giving up, we also need to add in patience and time, because at least for me everything takes longer than I think it will.

Your dream doesn’t have an expiration date.  Take a deep breath, try again.

  – Unknown

All of these things are required, because at every turn and obstacle fear is going to try to tell us to stop.  That this is not working.  That this dream is too big, too much for us to accomplish.  That look how far we have come – we can rest now and this will be good enough.  Fear will try everything it has to get us to just be happy right where we are. 

Carl Jung adds another piece to the picture that we are painting about dreams. 

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

  – Carl Jung 

Daydreams are outside dreams.  What they call “pipe dreams”, because they are so untethered.  Pipe dreams mesmerize us, as they float by.  They keep us asleep. 

Dreams are answers to questions we haven’t figured out how to ask.

  – Unknown

The dreams of your soul are a totally different kind of dream.  They are the DNA of your soul, the blueprint of what you have been divinely gifted with to achieve in this lifetime.  But in order for us to birth these dreams, and raise them up into the reality of this world, we have to wake up.  We have to become aware.  That is when our life starts to have true meaning.  When we awake to our life’s true purpose.  God speaks to us in dreams.  Dreams of the whispers of the soul.

Dreams are the guiding words of the soul.

  – Carl Jung

That is what made Martin Luther King Jr. speech about “I have a dream” so powerful.  The moment he put down his notes and spoke from his heart, the dream he had been given by the divine came through with such crystal clear clarity that it grabbed the soul of the world.  It was a powerful dream and even though he has passed on from this world, every year we remember this dream.  And even though he is not here to bring it into the full reality of what it can and will be, it is still progressing.  This dream has perseverance.  It keeps on going and it will keep going until it comes into full reality. 

Trust in dreams for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.

  – Kahlil Gibran

We all have a dream inside of us that is just as powerful and just as necessary to this world.  Please, please don’t let the dream die with you.  Bring it out of your heart.  Add the faith, the belief to know that you can change into who you need to be in order to make it a reality.  Know that it will take perseverance, that it will take patience and time, but you can become the person that you need to be to make it happen.

Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul.  Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

  – Mother Teresa

I look at my own journey with LemonadeMakers and I can tell you that this dream has changed my life.  That it is constantly challenging me to make more changes to become the person who can not only hold this vision and dream, but to become the person who can shout it from the mountain tops and be heard around the world.  If we all join hands, and collaborate together to change ourselves, we will change the world. 

So many dreams at first seem impossible.  And then they seem improbable.  And then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.

  – Christopher Reeves

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

Never Doubt Yourself

In 1952 Florence Chadwick, who had swum the English Channel, tried to swim from Catalina Island to the California coastline. After about 15 hours a thick fog set in and she didn’t think that she could make it. After another hour she asked to be pulled into the boat, giving up. She found out she had stopped one mile from her destination. She later swam the Catalina Channel several times. To face the doubt down, you just have to keep going.

When she looked at how far she had left to go in her imagination, (since the fog prohibited her from seeing the coastline in front of her) it was easy to get discouraged and quit. When you want to quit you start thinking and saying ” I have given all I have”. “No one could do more”. “This far is good enough”. “This is all I can take or handle”.

“Strength does not come from winning.  Your struggles develop your strengths.  When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength”  –  Arnold Schwarzenegger

Something important was discovered in the experiment of the biosphere, in regards to trees.  When they first planted the trees they were really excited to see the growth of the trees and how healthy they seemed.  But what they discovered was that without the winds creating resistance for the trees as they grew, their root systems were very shallow and they couldn’t support their upward growth.  They all eventually fell down because the roots couldn’t hold the tree upright.  The same is true for us. 

Have you seen the death crawl scene in the movie, “Facing the Giants”? The high school football player is blindfolded so that he can’t see.  Then another player is placed on the football players back.  He has to crawl on his hands and knees with the weight of that player.  The purpose of the blindfold is so that he can’t see how far he has gone. When you can see how far you have gone, the tendency is to discount it.  You start looking for reasons to quit, because it is too hard.  It epitomizes the strength that you have hidden inside of you.  The strength you hide from yourself, so that you don’t know that it’s even there. 

“Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what” – Harper Lee

When you see a big goal way down the field and what you have to go through to get there, your mind will start in with the negative chatter.  Your mind will find a million reasons, perfect logical reasons, why you can’t do it.  All words describing how it is impossible.  Your friends and family will probably jump on the bandwagon saying that you would be crazy to even attempt it.  Why start something doomed to failure?

In the movie, when the football player goes past the 50 yard line the coach gets excited.  Like a good coach he sees that the player has the strength to go further. He starts crawling in front of him, saying 10 more steps, 10 more steps until the player collapses saying he can’t go farther and it must be that he is at the 50-yard line. In fact, he is in the end zone and just carried another player on his back the entire football field.  Something that everyone, the coach, the other players and the boy would have said was impossible.

“Sometimes it is not the lack of ability, but the lack of confidence that prevents us from achieving what we really want.  Sometimes it’s doable, but self-doubt makes it impossible” – QuotesEmpire.com

You have amazing strength inside of you. You need to carry inside yourself something inspirational that feeds your soul and spirit to keep going. It could be a past victory.  There are many inspirational movies, Rudy, The Rocky Series, this film and I am sure you have your own list that you could continue with.  It could be looking at the miles you have already traveled. It could be the story of a family member.  Everyone needs the positive thinking of “I Can”, “I Will”, “I AM”, to shove aside the doubts and keep going forward into the end zone.

Next time you’re stressed, take a step back, inhale and laugh.  There is something about the breath that can disconnect you from strong emotions.  The old adage, count to 10 works for this reason.

• Think before you speak.
• You can take back a thought, you can’t unspeak the words.
• Remember who you are and why you are here.
• You’re never given anything in this world that you cannot handle.
• Even when it feels like you have been broken, you are still ok.
• Be strong, be flexible, love yourself and have compassion for yourself and others.
• Always remember to just keep moving forward, – it is always just 10 more steps.
• Like Dory in  “Finding Nemo”, in the face of adversity, just keep swimming.
• Don’t stop until you reach the finish line.

“Whenever you find yourself doubting how far you can go, just remember how far you have come.  Remember everything you have faced, all the battles you have won, and all the fears you have overcome” – Unknown

What gives us the courage to keep trying and stretching?  It has to do with your ability to change and transform.  It has to do with your attitude and definitions are around what transformation really means.

“Do you have the patience to wait until your mud settles and the water is clear?  Can you remain unmoving until the right action arises by itself?”  – Lao Tzu

See the  death crawl video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUKoKQlEC4

Life’s Storms

Revised 5/13/2019

I wrote this poem on a Sunday (see it at the bottom). It had been banging around in my head for a while wanting to be released. So, I took some quiet time while everyone was asleep and let it out. The entire poem is printed at the end of the post.

There is no growth without change. You’ve got to let go of some old stuff. And that can hurt. Often when I’m in the most pain, I realize it’s coming from my trying to control everything. Or resisting the changes that come with the progress. But you see that light . . ., that beautiful next level . . ., and that’s what you have to focus on – Ali Brown

I found the quote by Ali after I wrote the poem and was struck by how much of what I am trying to express in the poem is in her quote.

You have to release what no longer serves you. That could be the story that you have been telling yourself that holds you in chains of fear about success and failure. It could be the story that you tell yourself that you are not capable of being more. The stories you could be telling yourself go on and on.  They are varied and unending, depending on what your life has been about so far.

This control is when you stand up on the ship of your own destiny and release the anchor holding you to your stories. You drop the weight that holds you in place. You open to the winds of change.  You drop all of the baggage of blaming the world for where you are at this moment in time.  You decide to take your control back – control of how you think, how you react.

You can’t calm the storm, so stop trying.  What you can do is calm yourself.  The storm will pass – Thimber Hawkeye

It takes a lot of courage to stand up to the storm of fears and doubts. To realize that as you set sail on your ship, that there will be those who you leave behind, because they are still chained to their own stories. 

When I thought deeply about this I thought of Pompeii.  The volcano was going to erupt.  It had been giving signs of the coming destruction for months.  The people who were awake and listening, left the island behind.  But so many of the people didn’t believe what they were seeing on a day-to-day basis.  And they left fleeing to safety too late. 

I am sure that they fully believed the lies they were telling themselves, the false stories about how safety lay in staying – not in fleeing with nothing to their names, to untold dangers.  No, for them staying was the only smart thing to do.

You, however, face your fears of not knowing how you will steer the ship, or even where the next safe harbor will be.   You have the courage to face the fears of the unknown, to face the lies that you told yourself and make the right decision – to face and live through the changes that are coming.

There comes a time when you just have to listen to the music of your soul and set sail to the unknown. And so the journey begins. 

Life’s Storms

Storms without a name whip the seas into a fury, winds screaming through torrents of rain.
Waves crashing against the shore, bring in lost and forgotten debris.
Stand tall on the deck of your ship, as the birds scatter beneath the howling winds,
Let it blow away what no longer serves you. 

You feel the backlash of empty words with no truth, the shadows are winning.
No sunlight, every battle lost, and shadow is winning. No rescue. 
The lack of love, the hunger for life is insatiable, an open mouth that wails to be fed.
You can’t undo what has been done, it doesn’t serve you. 

Thunder rolls and lightning flashes exposing what still needs to be released.
Let it go out the door, don’t run after it as if falls off the deck and into the sea.
Feel the weight of the past, as the sounds of the anchor being lifted vibrate through your body,
The anchor being lifted from the bottom of the sea, the sound of your journey echoing onward.

Change, the anchor of our soul, it both drops into the sea, and is pulled back up into the ship,
Change moves us ever forward on the journey, unearthing the destination clue by clue, star by star.
Change reveals the next adventure, the next treasure that we are seeking,
Change reveals the next harbor in which to rest our soul

Bright morning stars, as day breaks open the dawn releasing the light, as it climbs the clear sky,
Light breezes blow as it fills the sails, with the dust blown clear, we see what has been done.
Every color sparkles as it plays upon the sea, as we awaken, transformed once more,
We hear the music of our soul, whispering as the journey begins again, echoing ever onward.

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.

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.

[lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1][lp-logic ids=”3473″ limit=1 use_content=1] Content to use [/lp-logic]

Stronger

When you are hanging on by the tips of your fingers, time stands still. There is this moment when even the wind holds its breath in anticipation. It is in that exact second that you reach down deeper than you even believed was possible. And what you pull out of the depths of your soul sends you straight up and over the top.

When you have reached past what you thought was possible and gone over into the impossible, that’s when you are unbeatable. Because even single cell in your body now knows that the only limits you have are what you believe is the limit.

YOU are stronger.

Obstacles

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have.” – Norman Vincent Peale.

This is for all of my old friends at Social Attractionaires and my new friends at Build Your Empire. When we do what we know to be right, even though it scares us to death we discover so much about ourselves. Keep staring fear in the face and doing it anyway!

Obstacles

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they
haven’t half the strength you think they have.” – Norman Vincent
Peale

Obstacles

“Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.” —Leonardo da Vinci