We Have The Power, Freedom And Courage To Change

“Don’t force yourself to fit in where you don’t belong” – Unknown

“Whatever the new beginning is for you right now, allow yourself to be swept away by the sweet freedom that comes with it.  Growth is around the corner” – Amanda Christian

“Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once.  Breathe.  You’re strong.  You got this.  Take it day by day”  – Karen Salmansohn

Free Your Soul

“You must learn one thing.  The world was made to be free in.  Give up all other worlds except the one to which you belong”  – David Whyte

“That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call your “free will” is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character”  – Ayn Rand

“In order to be who you are, you must be willing to let go of who you think you are” – Michael Singer

“. . , What I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That’s all any of us can do. That’s what we’re here for” – Shauna Neiquist

“I want you to always hold your head up and follow your dreams wherever they take you.  Don’t you ever listen to the people out to hurt you or make you cry.  Listen to your heart and be better than them.  No one gets ahead by hurting others.  The only real peace anyone will ever have is the one that comes from within.  Live your life on your own terms and make it a happy life.  Always. That’s what’s important . . . ,”  – Sherrilyn Kenyon

“You don’t always need a plan.  Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens”  –  Mandy Hale

Do Not Let Fear Hold You Back

Never let your fears hold you back from pursuing your hopes – John F. Kennedy

• How does one become fearless?
• Can you really be totally fearless?
• Would you want to?

When I think that fear is standing in the way of something that I want to do, then I need to do something to break up that fear into smaller pieces.  My own experience in life so far, has been that some measure of fear is healthy.  It helps me to not be stupid and hurt myself.  It also feeds into my spirit of victory when I accomplish something by growing through the fear and doing it anyway.

• So how do you control fear in your life?
• How do you control your life at all?
• How do you figure out what is within your control and what isn’t?

Part of it starts with understanding what is and is not under your control.  When you accept responsibility for and control over, such things as your judgments, impulses, and desires, then your life changes completely.  These are things that are within your ability to control.

If you try to control other things beyond your control, that is when you just get weighed down. It is like trying to swim with cement shoes, it isn’t going to end well.

Here’s the truth about big life changes:  some people won’t come with you.  and that’s okay – Early Mama

You can’t control our reputation because it is based on exterior things that are beyond our control.  We can’t control the spin that other people put upon what we say or do.  We can however, chose to take the high road and not get mired down in the drama.  How many times have things you have said or done been taken out of context and used against you?  You will be driven crazy trying to control stuff like that.

Your anxiety or getting angry about it doesn’t make it go away.  It doesn’t suddenly become something that you can control.  All it does is make you unhappy and destroy your peace of mind.  You have the choice of continuing to self-inflict injuries upon yourself by trying to control it, or you can let it go.  Realize that in the end, people will either recognize you for who you really are, or they won’t.  It is not something within your control.

What would you do if you weren’t afraid? – Thegoodvibe.co

The realization that what other people do is not your job to control, and you can’t make them change, will shift your world completely.  You begin to focus on walking your own path.  You are no longer trying to control another person’s journey.  With your focus on your journey, the ups and downs of life even out.  Your path becomes more serene.  You aren’t trying to avoid drama; you are just not drawing it into your world.  If something comes into your space, you just take a few deep breaths, let go of any desire to change someone’s else’s journey and keep walking drama free.

What is amazing is that we also have the ability to shift the memories we have into ones that don’t create a negative emotional response inside of us.  Our brain allows us to recall memories and reconsolidate them.  This means that we can take a childhood memory and add new information that wasn’t available to us as children.  We can turn fearful memories into fearless ones.

Everything we want is on the other side of fear – Jack Canfield

My sister Julie for example is a real scaredy cat.  She jumps at anything.  When she was a teenager, there was a movie that came out with a ventriloquist dummy that was a horror show.  She was watching T.V. alone late at night and the commercial came on for the movie.  She was terrified that it was coming after her.  So, she went to my parents’ bedroom door, opened it and called for my mom.  My parents’ bedroom was up some stairs, and their bed was against the railing of the stairs.  So, my mom leaned over the railing to tell my sister to be quiet, so she didn’t wake up our dad.  When my sister saw a head looming down the staircase she screamed and fell over backwards, falling down the couple of stairs that she had started up.  Needless to say, my dad was woken up – lol.

My sister as an adult can laugh at this story and it is no longer scary, because she has new information available to her, that her teenage self didn’t have.  We can do this with any scary memory that we have.  Update our memory with new information.

Life is like a game.  You can play it safe and be good, or you can take a chance and be great – iliketoquote.com

With visualization we can do the same thing to our future.  We can see into our future regarding something that we are scared of.  We can go through the experience step by step over and over again in our mind.  We can cross over from being fearful of the situation to being confident of it.  This is exactly what Olympic Athlete’s do.  They see themselves performing their routines perfectly over and over again.  They have hooked up machines to them and discovered that the muscles of the athletes are actually firing just like they were physically doing the routine when they are just using visualization.  The more they do this, the better their skills become.

So, with visualization, we can preview anything coming up in our lives that we have intense fears over.  We can practice what we would say or do over and over again.  This will give us some confidence that we can accomplish the thing that we are afraid to do.  When a rock climber wants to solo a difficult climb without ropes, they start out with ropes.  They climb it several times to learn where to put their hands and feet.  They then replay the climb over and over again in their minds.  They lose a lot of the fear over the climb this way because they have gained confidence in their ability to do it by the repetition.

I am the master of my habits – #Goalgetter

So, break down the walls of fear that you built to keep you safe.  Start believing and visualizing your dreams coming true.  Take a practice run to see what you can do with the ropes of safety.  Then expand that with visualization.  Then go for the life you have been dreaming of living.  Don’t let fear hold you back.  Go become the person that you have never been, but wished you were.

Everything In Life Is About Balance

One of the most common complaints is not enough time.  There isn’t enough time to get everything done.  When you have the demands of a career, a family, volunteering for your favorite charity, a spiritual life, trying to fit in physical fitness, etc. . . .  how can you fit all of that into one 24 hr time period, or even spread it out through your week?  How do you balance the hours in the day with everything that needs to be done?

The most common answer is something called “time management”.  I have read many books, heard speakers talk about it, but I have never been able to manage time.  The best I can do is keep that running list that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

“You can do anything, but not everything.”  – David Allen

What if it isn’t time management that brings a semblance of balance into a person’s life?  What if it is boundary management?

How many times have you said yes to your friend when she asked you to watch her kids, when you didn’t have the time to do it or even want to do it?  How many times do you have priorities screaming at home you want to get done, but you let your girlfriend talk you into going out on the town?  Not only did you burn up hours that you wanted to do something different with, now your budget is out of whack $100.00, and you didn’t even have “that” good of a time.

You could write a book of similar things that happen with work, such as having to work on Saturday because someone else in your department didn’t get their job done on time.

Or your child’s school talked you into committing to baking 12 dozen cookies for the bake sale.  You want to just drive by the grocery story and buy cookies from the bakery, but every other mom is baking and so you feel that you have to too.

All of these are not time management issues.  They are boundary issues.  You don’t know how to say no in such a way that they know you mean it.  How do you say no in such a way that they know you still love them, but “no I can’t commit to that.”

“Life is about balance; too much and too little can kill.  The best way to balance life is setting your boundaries and learning to say enough”  – M G Garcia

When you don’t stand up for the life that you want, then you end up living the life that everyone else pulls you into.  Boundaries keep your life on track and within the path that you have chosen to walk.

There are a lot of trainings and seminars that sound fun to me.  A lot of books that look like a great summer read.  A lot of TV series that look like they would be fun to watch (everyone at work is talking about them).

But I have boundaries in my life where I self-limit the number of hours I spend on things that are not furthering the dreams in my life.  I still enjoy TV and read great books, but I limit the number of hours that they suck up, because I could read book after book after book if I let myself.  The dishes would sit in the sink, the laundry would pile up and I would get around to a lot of chores as soon as I finish the next chapter – LOL.

So boundaries are both between me and the world, and between me and my dreams.  I don’t have perfect balance.  I binge on books or TV every once in awhile.  But I am constantly asking myself, “does this help me grow and expand LemonadeMakers in some way?”

When I do the occasional binge, it is because I have been working way too hard, and my brain needs a break.  I just don’t let my brain stay on a permanent vacation.  I love doing the research, finding the quotes and photos and writing these posts.  I love the comments people make and interacting with the community.  I am constantly learning new things so that I can bring them to my community and engage them in even more meaningful ways.

“Try to always live a balanced life.  Don’t deprive yourself, but don’t overindulge; don’t be lazy, but learn that it’s ok to relax; challenge yourself, but don’t be afraid to silly and let loose”  –  Alex and Ani

In addition to boundaries, balance is also about letting things go in your life.  Understanding the deeper concept of what letting go or giving up actually mean.  What is the difference between them?  How do we know when we should keep trying, and when we just need to stop?

I always think of the hospital shows on TV.  You see the doctor giving a patient who is having a heart attack CPR.  5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes?  How many times do you shock the heart to restart it?  There comes that moment when everyone else in the room has stepped back.  You can see they want to say, stop, this isn’t working.  But they are afraid to say it.  Then finally someone says, “you have to call the time of death”.  No matter how many times you try, that heart isn’t going to start beating again.

So how do you know if it is too soon or too late?  When do you let go?

When do you say goodbye to a job?  To a relationship?  To a dream?  To a belief?  When should you be holding on, and when should you be letting them go?

Balance is usually achieved by living between the two extremes.  Not letting go of things just because it is too hard; and knowing when to let go of things that no longer serve you.  Letting go of things that are actually beginning to harm you, because of your refusal to let go.

“Balance is not something you find.  It’s something your create”  – Unknown

You need to relook at what is happening with the thing you are trying to hold on to or let go of.

• Why are you being called to either hold onto it or release it?
• Is it tied to a fear?
• Is it too hard to accomplish?
• Is it unhealthy?
• Have you outgrown it?
• Have you just not grown into it yet?
• Does it still reflect who you are growing into being?

I always think of children when explaining this concept.  My son had a pair of rain boots that he loved.  He was around 3 years old at the time.  They were like fireman boots, all black, with a red circle around the top of the boots, and went up to his knees.  I noticed one day that he was squishing his toes to fit into the boots.  So I put them away in the top shelf of the hallway closet to save for his baby brother to wear when he was older.  Every time I turned around he had found those boots and put them on.  It didn’t matter where I hid them.  I finally had to give them away.

This same son, fast forward to high school age.  He enrolled in a drafting class because he was interested in drawing.  About six weeks into the class, he came home wanting to quit the class.  He said it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be.  He wanted to take a German language class instead.  I said he should stay in the drafting class and finish it.  My husband thought he should be allowed to quit it.

So he transfers into the German language class.  About six weeks later we were having the same conversation about the German class.  I told my husband that he needed to learn to finish what he starts.  Whatever reason he come up with for quitting, it wasn’t the real reason he wanted to quit.  The real reason he wanted to quit, was because the class just hit a hard spot.

When life hits a hard spot in a job, or a relationship or a dream – you might think it is time to quit.

• You might think that the fact that you are having problems means it just won’t work out the way you wanted.
• You might think that the hard spot is proof that you were wrong about that dream being your destiny.
• You might think that God is telling you to turn and go back to what you had before.
• You might think that you are being called to a different dream.
• You might think you should close the door on this one as being the wrong one.

The only way to know that you should keep trying or quit, is to ask yourself the hard questions around why you are doing so.  You need to look at your past and see what kinds of patterns you have in regards to trying harder or quitting.  You just need to keep growing into the best version of yourself.

Keep expanding your comfort zone.  Wake up and be conscious enough to understand when the subconscious is leading you astray.  To balance that understanding of when the subconscious is being tricky and telling you to walk away from something that you just had a setback with.

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Remember LemonadeMakers is here to help you dig deep into these kinds of questions, to bring clarity and purpose to the forefront in your life. 🙂

Clarity, Conviction And Taking Action Bring About Transformation

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

What stands in the way of you hitting your target?  Your Dreams?  Your big hairy audacious goals?  How many excuses have you made up for why you are not trusting your soul to lead you in the right direction?  How many times are you going to use your family, your job, other people’s problems, as excuses to block access to the door of your own dreams?

“Creativity comes from trust.  Trust your instincts” – Rita Mae Brown

I am not yet ready.  As soon as I have everything organized, I will be ready.  As soon as I have my ducks in a row, I will be ready.  As soon as I . . . fill in the blank. (Finish?  Learn more? Buy a house?  Get the kids through college? etc. . . .).  There will always be something new to stick in that blank, that lets you stand in the way of your destiny.

The problem has to do with time.  There comes a time when you have used it all up.  Then all you have left is an unfulfilled life.

Not today, but later.  Tomorrow I will do it.  Too busy today.  Later I will . . .   Tomorrow I will . . . fill in the blank.  Like time is a blank check that you can write any amount you need into it.  The reality is “Someday” is never coming.

I used to tell myself that as soon as the kids were all in school, I would have time to write.  Then it was as soon as the kids were out of the house.  Then it was as soon as I wasn’t working so much overtime.  It was always, “as soon as” – that “Someday” just kept moving further and further down the timeline.  I could never catch up to it, until I decided I wasn’t playing the game anymore.  Then everything changed.

“It’s your road, and yours alone.  Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you”   – Rumi

Or maybe your excuses are you don’t know what you should be aiming for.  You don’t know what your life purpose is; you don’t know what your personal genius is.  Are you even trying to find the answers?

What sets your soul on fire?  What is it that you can see that sends your mind down the rabbit hole of possibilities?  What is it that so wraps up your heart and soul, that you don’t even hear the objections of everyone around you saying it can’t be done?

Your soul has all of the answers, you just have to ask the right questions.  Your personal genius sees what no one else can see, and if you aim your heart and mind to what it tells you, there isn’t a target that you can’t hit.

Or maybe your subconscious patterns have you stuck and asleep at the wheel of life.  You’re the dreamer in a dream dreaming, and you think that you are awake.  It reminds me of the movie, “The Matrix”.  Will you take the blue pill and stay in your dream or the red pill and follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole? (Side note:  did you know that Keanu Reeves donated approximately $50M which was almost all of his earnings from this movie to the special effects team, making them all millionaires?  I think he took the red pill in real life too.)

There is a big difference between knowing what you should do, and actually doing it.  It all comes down to the blue pill of knowing or the red pill of doing.  Doing requires you to initiate your life.

“The easiest thing is to react.  The second easiest thing is to respond.  But the hardest thing is to initiate” – Seth Godin

Or it could be that your resiliency has lost all of its bounce.  You used to be like Tigger and bounce everywhere and somehow, you’ve turned into Eeyore.  Now you have a dark cloud over your head shutting out all light.  Don’t let your mind enslave you.  Let go of the illusions created from failure or disappointment.  Free yourself from the chains of your own making.  Don’t make yourself an undiscovered genius.

The hardest part of hitting the target is the decision to let go of the arrow.  To take fear and doubt out of the equation.  To cast time out the window.  Passion unchains your creativity.  It removes the fear of change, the fear of success or failure.

“As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning” – Barbara Sher

Only Those Who Can See The Invisible Can Do The Impossible

You will either step forward into growth, or you will step backward into safety.

  – Abraham Maslow

On “America’s Got Talent”, Mandy Harvey sang an amazing song.  She got the gold buzzer.  What she demonstrated through her song and her story is resilience.  When she was 18 years old, she lost her hearing from a disease.  She had been singing since she was four years old.  When she lost her hearing, she did what most of us would do and put away her dream as something that would never be able to happen for her.  She stopped singing.

Yes, sometimes the odds are really stacked against you, but no that doesn’t mean you’ll fail.  The odds of you even being conceived are so close to nothing that no one in their right mind would bet on your being here.  But you are.  You’ve already proved you can beat the odds.  So, do it again.

  – Doe Zantamata

Now here she was on stage to sing.  What had happened?  Why did she decide to try again to be a singer?  The song she sang is one that she wrote.  In the song she says that she got tired of not living the life she wanted to live.  That she was tired of saying no to her dream.  That even though the sky was more gray than blue for her, she was going to try and take her place again.  To try and live the life she still felt that she was destined to live.

Wanting something is not enough.  You must hunger for it.  Your motivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come your way.

  – Les Brown

She got the gold buzzer because of the combination of her beautiful voice, her heartfelt song of struggle, and her determination to overcome her perceived limitations caused by her deafness.  She was so hungry that she refused to let her dreams be defeated.  What Mandy teaches us is so vital.  She had the worlds best excuse not to go after her dreams.  She can’t hear her own voice.  She can’t hear her music.  But instead of stopping her forever, she took some time to heal through what had happened and then she did a very important thing.  She got curious.

A challenge only becomes an obstacle when you bow to it.

  – unknown

She got curious about what did she have that she could use.  Standing in her stocking feet, she can feel the music through the floor.  She then found that she could trust her voice to be on pitch.  She trusted her musicians and translator to let her know how the music sounded, how her voice sounded.  She found she could trust her body and voice to support her in her singing.  Her past of losing her hearing did not mean the end of her life.  It meant learning to live her live in a new way, so that she could still follow her dreams.

Anyone can hide; it’s the easiest thing to do.  Standing up, facing the truth, and working through problems, that’s what makes you strong.

  – unknown

We all have things in our life that create challenges and obstacles.  Some of them are life altering and may seem to close the door to our dreams.  We may sit in the dark and bewail what has happened to us.  We may have to go through the stages of grief, from anger, betrayal, denial, sorrow and so on.  But each day we face a new choice.  We can process through those negative emotions and rebuild our life, or stay in the dark ashes of what we thought life was going to be.

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal.  You do not change your decision to get there.

  – Zig Ziglar

Like Mandy, we each of us have something inside of us that is greater than any lemon that life can throw at us.  Sometimes when we are deep within the struggle of survival we can’t see it.  But it is there, patiently waiting for us to get off the floor and back onto our life path.  It helps when we can recall other times in our life when we got knocked down.  The times when we faced the battle against our negative mind talk.  Against the “not good enough” talk.  Against the friends and family who told us to give up, that what we wanted was not possible.  Against those who wanted to protect us from ourselves, from disappointment and failure.  Remember the fears that you faced down.  Remember how you discovered that those fears were all an illusion.

Being a Human Being is all about experiencing all of the wonders of the world.

  – unknown

What if . . .  the things that we go through, are ours to go through so that we can both experience the wonders of the world and appreciate them?  None of us know what we are truly capable of.  If we are just handed all of our desires and dreams, would we see them for what they truly are?  Would we grow and expand in our lives?  I don’t think that any of us would ever believe what it is possible for us to accomplish. 

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

  – Dale Carnegie

If we could sneak a peak at the end of the chapter that we are currently living, we probably wouldn’t accept the truth of what we read.  In the “Wizard of Oz”, Glinda the good witch tells Dorothy – “You’ve always had the power my dear, you just had to learn it for yourself”.  The same is true for us.  We’ve always had the power to live the life that we dream of.  The path to that destination is how we learn to accept it, use it, grow it, and live our life into it.  We are all capable of far more than we know.  We just need to click those ruby red shoes and say it until we believe it. Then pull up the big girl panties and get it done.  No excuses.

If you wait to do everything until you’re sure it’s right, you’ll probably never do much of anything.

  – Win Borden

Relax Into Surrender And Receive What Is Promised

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself which is now and always now?  Surrender to what is.  Say “yes” to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you”  – Eckhart Tolle

When you are in resistance to something you expend a lot of energy trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.

Imagine that you are holding a rubber band as far as it can be stretched.  At some point one of two things are going to happen.  The band will experience fatigue, break and snap your hands painfully, or you will let it go, releasing the tension.

If you find yourself exhausted every single day, you might want to check to see what you are creating resistance to.

What inner conflict and struggle is going on in your life?  What rigid habits or mind sets do you have which are in conflict with your journey?

Relax and tune into your inner guidance.  Follow where your intuition leads.  Then gently let go of what is creating this tension, the thing that is no longer serving you.  Experience the joy of renewed energy when you are in the flow of your life path.

Part of the process of learning to surrender to what is, is the process of learning to love who you are in this moment.  Accepting yourself with all of your imperfections actually empowers you to grow into your potential.

It is kind of opposite of what you may think.  You put yourself down thinking that condemning parts of yourself, is the way to change those parts of you that aren’t perfect.

Think of a metal spring.  Hold it between two of your fingers, pressing your fingers together so that it is totally compacted.  No space left.  This is how you treat yourself.  Like the expression, “too tightly wound”.  You compress your feelings, your desires.  You hold fingers tightly thinking that it puts you in control.  That you can force yourself to hide the parts you don’t want others to see.

“The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender”  – William Booth

But at some point, your fingers are going to get tired.  When that happens you are going to let go of that spring.  Then that spring is going to bounce all over the room.

When that happens, you create a pattern of self-sabotage in your life.  Your life turns into a Greek tragedy. You implode and whatever you were trying to hide, will expose itself in a big way.

But what if instead of trying to hold tightly to the spring, you released the tension just a little bit?  Then a little bit more and more, until there is no tension left.  You find the spring just stands there, perfectly balanced.

By surrendering to who you really are, you empower yourself to become better.  Instead of being your enemy, it becomes your teacher.  You learn to work with it, instead of fighting against it.

“Surrender requires courage.  In meditation, you confront yourself with your problems again and again until you finally understand the absolute need to let go.  Otherwise, you will continue to emphasize the lack of acceptance, regrets, pain . . .   But  when acceptance comes, I can see smiles on your faces”  – Sahajananda

You can’t control other people’s actions or reactions.  You can’t really control your own.  You can learn to let go.

To be like water.  To flow through, under, over, around the obstacles in your life.

Trying to push the boulder uphill just uses up your energy and leaves you tired, angry and frustrated.  Going around the boulder and continuing down your path is much easier.  Don’t try to drag the boulder back down the hill with you.

Leave it alone.  When you surrender, you also release.  It is a do or don’t do thing.  You either surrender or you don’t.  There is no part way to surrender process.  Find the blocks and release them completely.  Or don’t.

It takes a great level of self-love and determination to live your life this way.  But it is the way to growth and change.  To be able to live life as the greatest version of your true self.

True surrender is not giving up or giving in.  It has nothing to do with failure.  It is not being defeated by something greater than you are.

It doesn’t mean that you become welcome mats and let everyone wipe their feet on you.

It is simply and profoundly going with the flow of life. 

Most of the rules you put into your life were built on the concept of fear.  Fear of being hurt, so you closed up.  Fear of being wrong, so you shut up.  Fear of being exposed or humiliated, so you became invisible.

Surrender is about being vulnerable to all of those fears.  To realizing that you are much stronger than you think you are.  That if the worst happens, you can live and grow through that experience in a new way.  You can transform through any experience to come out the other side, stronger and more beautiful than you were.

“The inspiration you seek is already within you.  Be silent and listen”  – Rumi

It is about accepting what is, not what you were in expectation of.  It is about letting go of the should’s and could’s, and accepting what is.  It is silencing the mind and listening to your heart and souls voice.

Go from being a “human doing” to a “human being”.  The mind is all about doing.  The heart and soul connection is all about being who you are at the center of your being.

Believe in your potential, have faith in what will be.  Like the caterpillar, have faith that when you emerge from the chrysalis an even better life will begin.

There are no endings. Just New Beginnings

“Keep going.  Everything you need will come to you at a perfect time” – unknown

Just keep swimming.  The storm clouds will pass, and the sun always shines once again.  It may seem like you are walking through the valley of shadows and death alone, but that is an illusion.

There is the invisible spiritual world that is always by your side.  There are friends and relatives that may not know how to help, what to say or do – but they are cheering you on.  There are people in this world who every night pray for those who feel they are lost on life’s journey.

Just as your faith can move mountains, your doubts are what put them there.  Stop creating barriers that you have to fight to get over.

“Have the courage to make the change, the strength to see you through it, and faith that everything will turn out for the best” – unknown

Some leave you because they are not interested in a transformational journey any longer.  They wish to stay safe within their comfort zone and make no waves that might swamp their little boats.

Some you leave because you realize that you can’t continue to carry their weight and still walk your own path.  You have to cut the chains that are dragging you down.

Out of the best of motives, you find that you have done too much for someone, and you have to stop.  It only hurts them to continue.  You are not giving up on them.  It was just time to release them to their own journey, and for them to find their own way.  It is not the end of your story, just the end of their part in your story.  And that is ok.

“Note to self:  None of us are getting out of here alive, so please stop treating yourself like an afterthought.  Eat the delicious food.  Walk in the sunshine.  Jump in the ocean.  Say the truth that you’re carrying in your heart like a hidden treasure.  Be silly.  Be kind.  Be weird.  There’s no time for anything else” – Nanea Hoffman

If you have never read any of Caroline Myss’s books or heard her speak I highly encourage you to check out her body of work.  To me she is that really critical aunt that drove you crazy as a kid, but you learn to love and appreciate as an adult.  Because everything that she says is total reality, no sugar coating, and is the best advice that you could get.

The whole reason to be on the path to personal self-transformation is to realize that there are parts of you that are not in balance.  To learn how to bring them back out of the shadow and into the light.  You can’t do that work unless you are willing to be totally honest with yourself.

“Facing personal truths and purging yourself of addictions or manipulative habits requires strength, courage, humility, faith, and the other qualities of a soul with stamina, because you are not just changing yourself; you are changing your universe.  Change one coordinate in your spiritual compass and you change your entire life’s direction” – Caroline Myss

“May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears” – Nelson Mandela

If you are willing to make a few mistakes, to have a few failures, you can learn how to release the monsters from under your bed.  You can take on one monster at a time.  You can talk to it and learn its story, its reason to exist.  They were created when you were small and most of their stories are just bits of truth wrapped up in drama, trauma, and misunderstanding.

If you can unwind the experience, you can help them take off their masks and their costumes.  You can take away their illusions.  You can help them understand that their help was exactly what we needed at the time.  You can thank them for protecting you.  And if you can change one small thing for them, you can transform their relationship with you.

One small change at a time, one degree makes all of the difference.

 

“It takes courage to grow up and become who we really are” e.e. cummings

Walking on the path of the transformation life, you sometimes find your path ends with a large body of water that needs to be crossed.  You might swim across, but sometimes that body of water has a strong current, rapids or even is close to the drop off of a waterfall.  So, swimming might seem too risky.

You could look for a way to build a bridge across.  But you might decide that you don’t have the “know how” to build a bridge.

You could build a boat to row across, but maybe you don’t have the funds to buy the lumber.

Or you could fly.

What you must never do is to be afraid of doing whatever is needed to get across that body of water.  Because the worst thing that can happen is that you build a house alongside that body of water, and never even attempt to get across.  That is guaranteed to give you a life of regrets.  To be always wondering “what if?”  What if you could have flown across?

What might you have accomplished in your life, if you had just risked continuing down the path of a transformational life?

What is necessary is that you are stronger than your excuses.  Whenever you hear yourself say the word, “but”, you need to stop what you are saying.  Because whatever follows but is an excuse.  You don’t need to unpack your backpack at the word “but” and build a home there.  What you need to do is to get a shovel and dig under the excuse to find the pattern of sabotage that is underneath the excuse.

Root out the pattern and recognize it as a fear.  Shift and change how you are dealing with that fear.  Doubt has built another mountain, and you can refuse to climb it.  You can instead have faith in yourself, in your friends and family, in your spiritual beliefs, and know that if you built that mountain, you can take it apart and keep on your journey.

“When it is all finished, you will discover that it was never random” – unknown

When I look back at what I thought were mistakes, I see these links.  I took a new job, which ended three months later.  I was laid off and I couldn’t find work.  I lost my car because I had no money.  I moved out of state.  I got a new job and the reason they hired me?

It was because of what I was doing at that job for three months.  That experience led to a promotion for a position that I had been aiming for, to teaching at two different community colleges, to creating and running a training program for seven branches of a savings and loan bank.  None of which would have happened without that job for three months.

So was it a mistake?  I don’t think so.  Nothing in that string of experiences was random.  I was following the path of self transformation.  Sometimes the path kicks you butt, and sometimes you kick it back.

So, what do we do?  You swim.  You just keep swimming.  You make mistakes and you keep swimming.  You try new things and you keep swimming.  You change yourself, your world and you just keep swimming.

I hope this year, you make mistakes.
Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world.
You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something.
Don’t freeze, don’t stop, don’t worry that it isn’t good enough, or it isn’t perfect, wherever it is, art, or love, or work, or family, or life.
Whatever it is you’re scared of doing, DO IT.
Make your mistakes, next year and forever.
– Neil Gaiman

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

“Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you”  – Marsha Norman

Such a beautiful idea, dreams coming from your soul, as illustrations of what you can accomplish with your life.  What kind of life did you imagine when you were five?  Ten?  Twenty?  Forty?  Sixty?

• What came true and what did you throw away and abandon on the ground?
• What fears, excuses, and failures did you blame that abandonment on?
• Are you ready to turn a page and start the dream over?

Your dreams are waiting patiently for you to come back and try again.  But it isn’t a matter of doing the same things that already failed to bring your dreams into reality.

It is all about you transforming and changing yourself, so that you can become the person who can support that dream.  I think that is why many fail so many times.  You keep thinking that you just need to keep climbing the same slippery slope.  And every time you slide back down, you think you just need to try harder.

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

“Even though the future seems far away, it is actually beginning right now” –  Mattie Stepanek

Dreams serve a dual purpose.  They grow you, shift and change you in order to accomplish them.

And they bring something wonderful into the world, to shift and change others besides yourself.  Dreams are realities not yet beheld.

The story of the Starfish –

What you are doing right this minute, is the beginning of that future.  Even if it is as simple, as saving one starfish.

“Don’t downgrade your dream just to fit your reality.  Upgrade your conviction to match your destiny” – Shinzoo.com

When you work on becoming the person you need to become, to bring your dream into reality, how do you know what you need to transform within yourself?  The clues are like key holes in the walls that you built out of your fears.

Take for example the fear of public speaking.  It is said to be one of the most common fears that everyone has.  You probably have this fear.  So the wall of fear that you have built is designed to avoid any situations in which you might be asked to speak.  Your body will fight against you.  Some people go into hot/cold sweats.  Some become nauseous and even throw up.  Some people get that deer in the headlight look and forget everything, including their own name.

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

You have to discover what is lying underneath the rock called fear of public speaking.

• Was there something that happened in the past where you were subject to public humiliation?
• Is it tied to a lack of confidence that you have something to say that others would find worthwhile?
• Is it about your own judgment of how you look up on stage?
• Do you drown yourself in the “what if’s?”
  • What if I trip on the stage?
  • What if the microphone doesn’t work right?
  • What if I drop my notes and they are now in the wrong order?

Get curious as to what is underneath your own fear rock.

“Do what you have to do, until you can do what you want to do” – Oprah

When you pick up a literal rock, you might find dozens of different kinds of insects buried underneath it.  Within your rock of fear, there it isn’t just one answer buried underneath it.  It is usually several different items that are weaved together to create the illusion of a huge unmovable boulder of fears. But as you unwind and untangle each fear, acknowledge it, and see how you can transform it, the illusion of the boulder shrinks down into a manageable fear rock.

As you transform those fears with speaker training; As you practice and become well prepared; you realize that your speech isn’t about you.  It’s about helping your audience.  You discover that giving a speech can be a wonderful experience. Having some butterflies in your stomach before speaking is normal.  And having some nervousness with the first couple of sentences is common.  You are planting the seeds of your future success in bringing your dreams into reality.

“Let us make our future now, and let us make our dreams tomorrow’s reality” – Malala Yousafzai

What makes it a “Life Transformation” is the realization afterwards, that while it might not be perfect, you did it!  That someone in that audience needed to hear what you have to say. You spoke to that one starfish and helped it get back into the ocean.

You gain the confidence to realize that if you can conquer what might have been a crippling fear about being a public speaker; what else could you transform in your life that has been holding you back?

When you do something this transformational, you literally shift every cell in your body and become a new person.  You can’t go back to that person you were before.  Like the caterpillar, you just emerged from the chrysalis and spread your beautiful butterfly wings and took flight.

As you transform yourself with change after change, you discover that your dream itself keeps growing.  So the journey keeps going.

Along the way you will meet people who tell you logically, that you are wasting your time trying to save a beach full of stranded starfish.  You will experience epic failures.  You will be disappointed by other people who you thought were in the dream with you for the long haul.

If you stay true to your dream and honor your imagination and never, ever, give up – you will be a winner in bringing that dream a lot further than you could have imagined at the beginning.

• What are your dreams, visions, your life purpose?
• Are you on track to bring them into reality and complete them?
• Have you allowed distractions to sidetrack you?
• Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

Here at LemonadeMakers, we are happy to have those kinds of deep conversations, to help you figure out what is underneath the fears that seem to be holding you back from living your life purpose.  Contact us anytime.

Hard Times Are Life’s Opportunity To Take Off And Fly Into Your Potential

Isn’t funny how you will look at someone as being “the overnight success” story.  There is no such thing as the overnight success.  Every step that we take in bringing our dreams into reality has a price.  People don’t see the 10,000 hours you put in to become the master that you are today.  They don’t see the hours that you continue to put in to hone your gifts into the genius category.  What if instead of getting mad about someone’s cutting remarks, we stayed silent.  And to take it one step further, what if instead of crying about what they just said or did (which is what they want) you laughed out loud about it?  What if you said, “if you hate this, just wait – I have more achievements that you can be mad about coming.”  And my personal favorite, “If you don’t like me and still watch everything I do, you’re not my haters, you’re my fans.”

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

The sad thing is that we listen to the critics at all.  We can have 10 people come up and gush all over us, how wonderful we are, so inspiring.  And then one person finds something negative to say about us, usually personal and not having anything to do with the job we do, and that is all we think about.  What if we turned it around?  Instead of taking it personally and getting wounded, what if we took it as a sign that we have something within us that needs to be released.  Thanking them, literally, because they just made you aware of some personal work that you need to do for yourself?  Just a little housecleaning to track down where that hurt you just felt is actually coming from.

When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

 – African Proverb

I have always loved the quote from Theodore Roosevelt.  It puts everything into perspective, because most haters are not putting themselves out there to accomplish their dreams.  They become haters because the truth that you are living, shows up the lies they are telling themselves.  They become haters because every time one of us puts ourselves out there, it reflects to them that they aren’t fulfilling their own personal destiny.  Every time we get back up from the failures, and keep going until we win through, it is like a stake in their hearts because they are too afraid to fail and so they don’t take even the first step into the arena.  They know that they have a divine destiny, a life purpose.  Instead of listening and following their souls calling, they smother their heart when it cries out to them to walk into the arena and get dirty.

It is not the critic who counts; nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deed could have done better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, who face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 – Theodore Roosevelt

So how do you unlock your own potential?  You get curious.  You look for open doors to walk through.  You go on adventures.  You read, watch and listen and then think, think, think.  You wonder what if? What could I just do next?  What happens when I?  Like Alice in Wonderland, each step down the path brought something new into her life.  She realized that every single day she was a totally new person; that nothing was impossible; and that all of us are just a little bit mad; and it is always tea time.

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where -‘ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
‘- so long as I get SOMEWHERE,’ Alice added as an explanation.
‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough”

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

Whenever I hear the word relentless, I think of a small child.  You know that age where they ask “why”?  Why is the sky blue?  Why do dogs bark and cats meow?  Why, why, why?  At first it is cute.  Then it drives you mad.  Children are great examples of being relentless when they want something.  How many times as parents have we said no, only to give in later because we can’t take it anymore?  But like a lot of excellent childlike qualities at some point most of us lose that quality of being relentless.  We stop asking because they will just say no.  We don’t ask because what if they say no and we put ourselves out there just to be shot down.  We don’t want to be annoying, or look foolish or be a failure, and . . . . .  so we make excuses.  We place the blame on others.  We start looking around for things that won’t be hard to do.

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

Unknown

Find a purpose in life so big, that it challenges every belief you have.  That it challenges you to do things and try things that never occurred to you before.  Instead of following the crowd, break out and find your own path.  Change the way you think.  Your story gives you so many clues to your life purpose.  Your dreams are like sign posts pointing you in the direction to go forward and bring them into reality.  Your souls voice is you refusing to be quiet and invisible.  We can’t know your story until you tell it.  Whether that is from speaking, writing, acting, dancing, singing – whatever form it takes, it must be told.  Your story isn’t about being a victim, it isn’t about the tragedy that happened.  Your story is about how you overcame “all that stuff”, and how you took life’s lemons and made the best lemonade in town.

I recently read an article about a 10 year old boy in Texas who likes to invent things.  In his neighborhood, there had been a baby left in a vehicle in the summer that had died.  It really affected him.  Now he wasn’t like most of us, saying how could someone forget their child in the car.  He wasn’t thinking that they should go to jail.  What he was thinking was what could I invent so that when someone makes a tragic mistake, it doesn’t have to result in the death of a baby?  So he now has a patent pending for a little cooler that looks like a giant lego, that will turn on when the heat gets too high and the car seat is occupied by a child.  By cooling the baby, it makes time for the parent to remember they left the child in the car and rescue them.  What struck me about this story is that this totally preventable situation has been happening for years and it never occurred to millions of adults to create some sort of mechanism in the car seat to cool the child and buy enough time for the child to be rescued.  How many other opportunities are there out there for some great thinking outside the box that will save lives? 

How big is your purpose?

Believe In Your Own Greatness

If I were to ask you what your highest potential is, would you have a ready answer?  Would you need to think about it for awhile? What about the first career that you thought you wanted when you were little?  A policeman, Fireman, Doctor, Teacher, or maybe even the President?  What was it about that career that appealed to you?  Why did you change your mind?  Why did you give up the dream?

You have everything you need to build something far greater than yourself.

  – Seth Godin

Usually we give up a dream because we think we don’t have what it takes to make it happen.  This can come from the outside, from parents, friends, peers etc…, or from the inner critic fear, who convinces us that we aren’t good enough to be that person who can make their dreams come true.  To catch our potential and live our dreams we have to fight our greatest fears.  I believe absolutely that if we are given the dream, then we do have the potential.  I believe that all of us are better than we think we can be.

As human beings greatness is not so much in being able to remake the world as in being able to remake ourselves.

 – Ghandi

When faced with those fears of living out our dreams, we tend to run away.  We blame others for what we are afraid that we can’t accomplish.  We get involved in time sucking activities.  We live down to the lowest level of our potential, figuring that falling off the first stair step of the staircase won’t hurt as much as falling down one or two dozen steps.  Then looking up from the ground level, that idea of reaching for the moon seems even further away and less obtainable.  We run around with others who are running away from their own potential, so that we feel part of a crowd, safe and secure – “just like everyone else”. 

You can see and feel this mindset when you try to make a change.  The crowd around you doesn’t want you to make any changes in reaching out to grow into your potential.  They see that mirror of you reflecting back at them, and they will oppose it, because they don’t want to wake up to their own true potential.  It would mean that they have to grow and change too, and that is just too scary.  It is far easier to remain unconscious and in a rut.

Have you even seen pictures of the Oregon Trail with the ruts that were worn into the prairie by the wagon trains?  Some of them dug so far into the earth that it was like a wall on both sides of the wagon as they went through.  It might make you feel safer, but ruts are filled up with limiting beliefs, uninspired sameness, mental, physical, and career burnout.  It is a sure path to being asleep in your life.

I want people in my life who are more interested in my growth than my comfort.

  – Eric Johnson

Why does that matter?  Because study after study reflects that as a group, we develop a “sameness” in our actions.  Eating habits, exercise habits, even monthly menstruations, it all tends to become regulated to the group.  So if you want to reach your potential you need to associate with other people who are trying to reach theirs.  People who take action.  Who are awake and conscious not only to their own potential, but in the potential of others around them.  People who will cheer you on, who will stop when they see you take a fall and help you get back up. There isn’t any competition with this group of people, but rather collaboration in helping each other get up the next level of growth, and celebrating all of the milestones along the way.

To reach your full potential, you have to set goals that will stretch you.  You must not be afraid of taking risks.  You must learn to recognize opportunities and have the courage to pursue them. You have to make better choices that will provide better results.  Finally, you need to avoid the negative influences of other people and surround yourself with successful people who will encourage you to pursue your dreams.

  – Zig Ziglar

And you should expect to fall down more times than you succeed.  It is part of the process of learning something new.  You learn a new language, you will say the wrong words, in the wrong sequence, or just pronounce it so poorly that no one can understand you.  But if you immerse yourself in the language and culture (go live in the country that speaks that language with an actually family that refuses to speak your native tongue) you will be amazed at how fast you become proficient.

The problem is when we fall down and get up, at some point when we fall down again, we say we can’t get up again.  You fill in the blank of what your favorite excuse is, because anything we say after the word “BUT” is just that an excuse.  I wanted to finish college, but . . . “this is too hard”;  I wanted to interview for the new promotion, but . . . “I am afraid I it’s too big a leap”;  I thought we would be married forever, but . . . “I’m just not cut out for this”.  If you can build a visual picture of your life when you have accomplished the dream, it makes it easier to get clarity, to stay focused, to in a few words, “Have a Vision” and accomplish it.

Vision is the ability to see potential in what others overlook.

  – Rick Warren

So what do you do if it has been forever since you listened to your dreams?  If you have forgotten what wakes you up and fills you with joy of life?  First of all you need to believe in your potential being way greater that where ever you are right now.  Then think back to what makes you happy.  If money, time, and family was all in your favor, what would you do with your life right now?  If you knew that you only had one week left in your life, what unfinished dream would you want to dedicate all of your remaining time to?  What is it that haunts you, keeps you awake when you give your mind the freedom to think about it?  What is the “only if” in your life?  These are all places to look for that dream if you have misplaced it.  It also shows up in the areas in our life that come naturally to us.  Look for the pattern and sew that dream back together piece by piece.

So we have this dream.  We map out the path to bring it into reality.  We create a Destiny Map.  We start building bridges to grow ourselves into the kind of person that dream requires us to be.  Then at some point, we see that we have to cross a different kind of bridge.  The gap between where we are and where we want to go next, requires us to step out onto a bridge that we can’t see.  Like Indiana Jones we have to literally walk across what we see as air, and trust that the bridge is really there.  We have to risk everything we have, all of our beliefs in what we are capable of, to cross that bridge.  If you are lucky enough to reach this bridge, this is where most dreamers quit. They fail to seize the moment to do something they have never done. 

When you are not willing to be challenged, disturbed or offended, you are not willing to explore your weaknesses or ever reach your highest potential.

  – Bryant McGill

So expect failure.  Expect to be wrong.  Expect change.  Expect challenging times.  Realize that your greatness is hidden in your true potential and keep digging it up until you find it and expose it to the world.  Unlock the treasure chest and release your potential.  It is a priceless treasure, which doesn’t do us any good unless we are out there distributing it.  Dream big.  Work hard.  Believe in yourself.  Be who you really are.  Dream, plan, execute!

When everything seems to be going against you remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.

  – Henry Ford

Be Brave – Entertain The Uncomfortable And Shoot For The Stars

The Three C’s of Life:

Choices, Chances, Changes.

You must make a Choice to take a Chance or your life will never Change.

 – Zig Ziglar

They say that everything you have ever wanted is one step outside of your comfort zone.  If you are around my age, you may remember the day that the astronauts landed on the moon and took the first step onto the moons surface.  Everyone around the world that had access to a T.V. was watching.  No one said a word as they watched, holding their breath.  Then again, when the astronauts came back home and safely splashed into the water.  It was an amazing time, because something had happened, that couldn’t be believed.  They went to the moon, they walked on it and brought back space rocks.  They made it back safe and a boundary was forever broken that most of us believed wasn’t possible.  Sometimes I think that the one step outside your comfort zone is just like that first step onto the moons surface.  Because that first step in the direction of our dreams is soooo very hard to do.  It sometimes feels like we might not make it back alive, when we take that step.

You don’t get over the fear of doing something by not doing it.

 – Zero Dean

Stepping outside that circle begins with a vision.  Look at the stars colored into the lines.  Those are all of your dreams that you have been given to go out and bring into reality.  Each star is like the rest stop on a long road trip.  A safe place to stop and take a nap if you need it.  A place to refresh yourself as you get ready to get back on the freeway and travel to the next stop along your destination.  A place where they have a map that says, “you are here” and marks out places that you can go explore.  Some of them are located at landmarks, and some at scenic views.  You can meet people from other states.  You can talk to truck drivers who go from one side of the United States to the other, transporting everything that we have in our homes to the marketplace.  Step out onto to your first star.  Move from where you are, to where you need to be.

We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong.

 – Unknown

Did you know that in order to write a single sentence, we need to have the ability to see the sentence in our minds?  That is how we start out when as a young child we start writing out sentences. Along the way, we do this by habit.  We begin with a vision.  Then we start building bridges along each step of the way.  We start coloring in the stars as far as we can reach.  And one day it happens, that in order to color in the next star, we have to take a step into the vision itself.  You will have to leave the place where you are in order to continue to give birth to the vision. It will mean that you feel lost, uncomfortable and awkward.  It will mean that you fail, not once or twice, but many times.  But once you get the hang of it, your life will change in the most amazing ways.

You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

 – Christopher Columbus

At some point we have to light our fire, our passion to overcome the fear of taking the step.  We have to want it more than we are afraid of it.  The greater the fear, the greater the growth.  If you have kids, you will have witnessed growth spurts.  I remember when my boys were little.  I always knew when a growth spurt was coming because they consumed food like they were vacuum cleaners and they would sleep longer.  Then practically overnight, I had to buy new clothes and shoes because nothing fit.  There is discomfort when we grow at first because everything that fit us yesterday, doesn’t fit us today.  But when we give it a little time and space, we grow comfortable again with a new favorite pair of favorite jeans or shoes.  We can’t let fears rule over us and make us afraid to walk into our future selves.  That is where the joy and adventure are waiting for us.  The “Stars” are calling us, we just have to take the call.

The more scared we are of a work or calling, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.

 – Steven Pressfield

Courage is the realization that this fear of leaving the comfort zone is just a place marker.  It marks the place where you are about to do something that will shift your life into a totally new place.  Do you remember the first time that you moved?  If you were a kid, it meant a new neighborhood.  New friends.  New school.  Maybe the move was to go to college and you left your family behind to go to school in another state.  Or maybe your first move was out of state for a new job.   All very scary “new” things.  But kind of exciting too.   Because you didn’t have any idea who your new friends were going to be; who your new teachers would be; what your new home would look like.  You said goodbye to a lot of things, and at the same time you got to say hello to some new things.  The fears that we imagine are just there to let us know that something wonderful is coming our way.

If we’re growing, we’re always going to be out of our comfort zone.

 – John Maxwell

Outside of that circle is where life really happens.  It is where the magic is – that is why the stars are there to guide us.  It is where we get to create our own life.  We can decide and choose who and what we want to become.  Keep walking, maybe even running sometimes to the destiny that you have been given.  Hold to your vision and don’t let anyone or anything keep you from it.  Trust in the process, remember to breathe, and if you haven’t got uncomfortable, then you haven’t left your comfort zone.  Your fears can be pretty tricky, and they will make it seem like you stepped out of the circle and onto one of the stars.  But do a gut check – no butterflies, no giddiness, no feeling of “What Did I Just Do” and you better check to see where those toes really landed.

Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.

 – Les Brown

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