We Are Victorious Over Fear

We crash.  We burn, and we get back up stronger, more resilient, and more determined than ever before.  We are not victims, we are victorious.  

– Garrett Paknis

With each step we add something to our life or, we release something out of our life.  That is how change and transformation works.  It is taking that step.  That step towards our dreams.  We don’t look behind us and waste our energy in feeding our fears.  We just keep taking another step.  Each thing that we release out of our life is something that no longer brings us joy.  It no longer serves us.  It might be that it is something that we have outgrown.  Or it may be made up of disappointments.  Something that feels like a failure or setback.  We take out the lesson we needed and we release the rest.  It is all the parts of the illusion that we are burning away.  Those so called losses do not define who you are in reality.   Only in fears illusion do they hold any power. 

There is no illusion greater than fear. 

– Lao Tzu

When we don’t release the illusions we can become frustrated with our life.  Frustration is like damming up the river.  It tries to keep flowing, but it gets stopped by the dam.   At some point the water rises up to the top of the dam.  Then it starts to trickle over.  It isn’t yet free flowing.  We start to realize that the dam is the problem.  It is at this point of recognition, that we can at last redirect the energy of the river, to burn away the illusion of the dam, and begin to flow freely again to the sea. When your passion and your purpose are greater than your fears and excuses, you will find a way.

Life doesn’t get easier or more forgiving; we get stronger and more resilient.

 – Dr Steve Maraboli

When we can at last see through the illusion of fear, we begin to get bold enough to use our voice to speak our truth.  We can be brave enough to listen to the voice of our heart, to our intuition, our souls voice.  And we can be strong enough to finally live our life’s purpose with full out passion.  We are willing to be vulnerable enough, to be split open and let all our insides spill out onto the table.  We are strong enough to be who we really are.  To fully expose the parts of us that we had hidden away from fear of being seen.  The phrase “do not be afraid” is written in the bible 365 times.  A daily reminder to be fearless.  So start everyday with this reminder to be fearless, breathing in the faith of walking with courage and fulfilling your divine purpose..

Fear is always triggered by creativity, because creativity asks you to enter into realms of uncertain outcome, and fear hates uncertain outcome.  This is nothing to be ashamed of, it is, however, something to be dealt with.

 – Elizabeth Gilbert

It is not letting our dreams be deferred to “Someday Isle”.  Someday I will have the time; someday I will have the money; someday when the kids are grown and through college.  Instead we trace our stories to their roots.  We liberate our soul to fulfill our dreams.  It isn’t about “what happened to me” (see my pain and feel sorry for me), it is what we choose to do with life’s experiences.  It is about look at who I have become, what I “chose” to become.  What treasure we found within the experience, the hidden gem.  It is about how it has exposed the better me that was hiding inside of it.

The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun.  It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and the rains and scorching sun.

 – Napoleon Hill

It is pausing as you inhale the breath. To pause listening to the question in the space of the pause.  To hearing the answer with the exhalation of the breath.  There in that space, is the creative spirit.  It is waiting to take you by the hand.  To walk the road of fulfillment of the dream.  There in that space is the taste of possibilities.  It is how that creativity bubbles to the top when we take the time to just breathe and listen.

We get a glimpse in that space of where we are heading.  It invites us to plunge into the river and flow to the sea.  To learn to dance down life’s road.  Be curious, make great discoveries.  Observe how the unknown can become joyful. 

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Wake Up and Live!

Action without vision is only passing time.  Vision without action is merely daydreaming.  But vision with action can change the world –  Nelson Mandela

You can drive down the freeway, not paying attention to where you are going.  You will go places, but in reality, you are just passing time.  Vision without action is daydreaming.  You can write down how you want to go to Scotland.  But if you don’t save any money, it is just a daydream.  But when you put the vision and action together, miracles can happen.

You can put a budget in place and save money. You can check out websites and find a really good deal on airplane tickets, or a travel package.  You can put in your request for vacation time at work.  You can research and plan and pay for the perfect trip to Scotland, and it happens because you put the dream into action.

Don’t tell people your dreams.  Show them – Unknown

I love science fiction books.  The writers dream up things that don’t yet exist or that people of their day didn’t yet know about.  In Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathon Swift wrote that Mars had two moons – it would be nearly a century later that they discovered he was right.  Jules Verne had rockets launching into space from Florida.  Kipling had mail being flown all over the world, before there were even airplanes.  Such things as television, solar power, video phones, movies with sound, space flight – all things talked about in science fiction before they were invented.

All of this came from someone’s dream, or vision being brought into reality.  I know that someday in the future, we will beam people from place to place.  Science will catch up to those dreams too.

But what about your everyday life?  Can your dreams create the future for you personally?  I have always loved this Steve Jobs quote:

It is really up to you to get still enough that you can hear the voice of your soul, your intuition.  Not listening to who the rest of the world wants you to be.  But getting still enough that you can hear the whispers that you have ignored for years.

The distance between dreams and reality is called action – Unknown

To listen to that still, soft voice.  You can’t be the anchor for everyone else in your life.  If you succeed in drowning out the voice of your soul, you drown your happiness.  Life is a gift.  Your soul knows the key to happiness.  It wants you to be crazy and live out those dreams that you buried deep within.  It wants you to wake up and be awesome.  The ruts in the road only show up, when you are not living your dreams.  The negative emotions drain your energy, and your life.  Wake up and dig up those dreams.  Don’t let them die in the dirt.  Put your vision into reality.

Your soul will open doors, but you have to be looking for them and walk through them.  Your soul will give you signs, but you have to read them and then do what they say, by following through with action.  If you are listening to the radio and not paying attention, then you will pass the signs by.  Just like on the freeway, there will be more than one sign telling you to stop for gas.  You can’t blame the universe when you don’t pay attention to the voice of your soul and run out of gas.

 Every morning you have two choices; continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them – Unknown 

Get curious.  Dream Big.  Be Unstoppable.  There are those who try to make the doors to your dreams slam shut, they try to put things in the way so that they can’t be opened.  You have to see what is, and what else is possible.  That is where the magic happens, that is what makes the miracle possible.  That is the place where the newer, bigger dreams live.  That is the place of giants, where the dreams are deeper than the bottom of the ocean and larger than the boundaries of the universe.   So, Wake Up and Live!

Strong Women Value Themselves and Each Other

The devil whispered in my ear, “you’re not strong enough to withstand the storm.”  Today I whispered in the devil’s ear, “I am the storm”.

  – Unknown

We are all stronger than we know or think we are.  I come from a long line of strong pioneer women.  My great, great grandmother came across the Oregon Trail as a young girl.  The wagon train that her adopted family was part of was attacked by Indians.  She was adopted by the tribe and given to an Indian brave that she had two girls with.  One day a French Canadian trapper saw her and offered to take her back to the white people.  My great grandmother was hidden in an oak barrel for two days scared that if she made a sound she would be killed.  When she reached Oregon and the white people my great grandmother suffered the prejudice of being a half breed.  Her mothers tale was one of rescue, her tale was something else.

In my own life, my parents were divorced when I was four because my mother had an affair and became pregnant with another married mans child.  She moved us around a lot and it wasn’t until I was in high school that I went to the same school the entire grade.  She was married five times and had numerous other relationships looking for something outside of herself, to fill the hole within.  At one point when I was thirteen years old we were homeless because we had no where to go when her current relationship failed.  That was when I knew that my life would be different.  She taught me that you couldn’t find anything outside of yourself to fill the need you had inside.  It had to come from within.  Even though she made a lot of bad decisions, she was the strongest woman I have ever known.  I come from a long line of strong women.  This is what they taught me:

Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.

  – Nora Ephron

Strong women know that sometimes we just need to sit with the questions until a direction is clearly revealed.

Strong women can sit with another woman in the silence without needing to say anything to break the tension.

Strong women know that when another woman is venting she doesn’t want anything to be fixed, she just needs someone there to witness the removal of the splinter that is causing her pain.

Strong women know that they must make their own light. And if as it sometimes happens that their light goes out, another sister will be there to share hers, until we are strong enough to relight our own.

Strong women know that when the light goes out, we are facing the day, when we question everything. When something so tragic happens that all of our foundations crash into dust.

This is the day when we all circle around our sister as she faces her crisis of faith and reveals the doubts which will birth a new creation. This is the day when we nurture her. When each sister holds the soul of the other ,and whispers the words of transformation.

This is the day of transformation which strips away the old way of being. Rising like a phoenix from the fire, we are reborn, fully transformed. 

No longer trying to be what others want us to be, we accept “us” without reservations or restrictions.

Strong women know that when you stand strong for yourself, you are standing strong for all of us.  When this belief is fully understood and lived, incredible things happen.

We value who we are, no matter what anyone else thinks. 
We forgive ourselves completely. 
We trust ourselves wholeheartedly. 
We are brave enough to love ourselves just as we are, perfectly imperfect. 
We empower ourselves to fully embrace our intuition.
We begin to live our life being the wonderful creation we are.

We fully realize the power of being a goddess, and that nothing can hurt us or stop us, except us.

A strong women doesn’t hold back either the laughter or the tears, because both cleanse the soul.

A strong women doesn’t apologize for knowing how to be both soft and powerful.

A strong women in her essence, her entelechy, is a gift to herself, to her tribe, and to the world.

I choose to be kind because it makes me happy.  But I will defend my boundaries and my loved ones without hesitation.  Make no mistake:  I am fierce.

  – Nanea Hoffman

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An Inch Of Movement Brings You Closer To Your Goals Than A Mile Of Intention

Things do not change.  We Change

 – Henry David Thoreau

Transformation signifies that I can’t go back to what was.  I can only move forward.  I really like the thinking process that Jason went through, to get to this realization of treating transformation as a game. 

Transformation is my favorite game and in my experience, anger and frustration are the result of your not being authentic somewhere in your life or with someone in your life.  Being fake about anything creates a block inside of you. Life can’t show up for you if you don’t show up as you.

 – Jason Mraz

When my daughter was around 4 years old, she had to have a root canal done.  I was really worried that the experience would make her afraid of the dentist.  She had already had a bad experience with a pediatrician, and would cry when she had to go to the doctor.  I was referred to a specialist and wow!  What an excellent dentist.  He was talking to her and telling her some long complicated story.  I watched as he gave her the Novocain shot – he had her so involved in his story that she didn’t see or feel the needle in her mouth.  He went very slowly, and she didn’t ever notice that she got the shot.  At the end of the visit, she was happy and relaxed.  I was really impressed.  He treated the whole thing as a game.  She didn’t have a traumatic experience.  It really is all about the attitude that we have about it. 

The next part of his quote, is how when we are angry and frustrated in our life, it circles back to us – not something happening outside of us.  It might be that we had expectations that were not realistic, and so we are mad that it didn’t happen the way we expected.  Or it might be that we had the expectation of failure, and so set ourselves up to fail.  We created the block ,and then we banged our head against it in anger and frustration.

In my own life experience I have a large list of “reasons” why I can’t, or why it didn’t work out.  But under those “reasons” is the block that I put there to run into.  We need to learn how to be honest with ourselves.  Not cruel or mean, judging our efforts and calling ourselves a loser.  But rather, we need to dig up the block to see what it was sitting on.  This hidden knowledge, is the real reason why we are not transforming as we wish.  Some of things you might find are the “I’m not enough” excuses.  “I’m afraid” excuses.  “I will just fail” excuses.  I am sure that you could add a few of your own to this list.

I know this transformation is painful, but you’re not falling apart; you’re just falling into something different, with a new capacity to be beautiful.

  – William C. Hannan

For growth to happen, transformation is necessary.  It brings an opportunity into our lives.  We have to show up, for it to happen.  We have a choice to take up the challenge it creates, and work with and through it.  We can choose to fight it, to try to prevent it from happening.  When we resist transformation, it usually creates a crisis in our lives.

Every crisis contains within it the seeds for transformation and growth. 

  – Jodie Gale

It is so much easier to initiate the transformation, than to be pushed into it with a crisis.  Some change is inevitable.  It happens whether we want it to or not.  Other change is optional.  We choose to initiate a process of change, or we choose to not go down that road.

Change can be hard.  It requires no extra effort to settle for the same old thing.  Auto-pilot keeps us locked into past patterns.  But transforming your life?  That requires courage, commitment and effort.  It’s tempting to stay camped in the zone of That’s-Just-How-It-Is.  But to get to the really good stuff in life, you have to be willing to become an explorer and adventurer.

  – John Mark Green

For example.  We can chose to continue our education to go to college, or to not do so.  Either choice is a path that we can take.  What we choose may depend on our belief in ourselves to make it happen, the actions that we take to make it happen.  If we say we want to attend college, but don’t enroll, apply for student loans, etc… it is like waiting for a train to come down a track that is no longer in service.  We can sit there all week, but the train isn’t coming.  Life will present open doors to us, but we still have to get up and walk through the doors – we have to take action.

The best way to initiate change in our lives is to do small simple steps that bring joy to our hearts.  Take the example of college.  You might first start checking out the options.  Go online and google “colleges near me”.  Bible colleges, Cosmetology or Massage Schools, a traditional community college, a state college.  A two year degree or a four year degree?  Write down a few of the local colleges and contact the Admissions office and arrange a tour.  Meet some of the students and professors.  Sit in on a class.  Interview with an Admissions officer.  Pick up financial aid forms.  All of these are small steps to help you start towards your goals.

Maybe you have to work fulltime, and so you go through some of the same steps for an online college.  Including finding out from your HR department if the company will pick up some or all of your tuition or book fees, etc..

Once you have taken on some of the smaller action steps, it becomes easier to now turn in the financial aid package and actually enroll in some classes.  Of course, some of the changes in your life now will be a little harder to manage, as you now have class work time and homework that needs to fit into your schedule.  You will have to make sacrifices in time and money to bring this goal to its completion, but look at what you will have at the end.  You have an education; you can now get a better job.  You might be inspired to go on towards a masters degree or PHD.  But really what you have, is the knowledge that with some hard work and sacrifice, you can accomplish big goals in your life.  You can become a change agent.

The best thing you could do is MASTER the chaos in you.  You are not thrown into the fire.  YOU ARE THE FIRE.

  – Mama Indigo

So what are the changes in your life that you have the intention to make?  What are the changes you been putting off?  What are the things on your “to do” list that remain “just” a good intention?  The things that never take flight, because you just keep transferring it to a new piece of paper, never completing them? 

Take action!  An inch of movement will bring you closer to your goals than a mile of intention. 

 – Dr. Steve Maraboli

Sometimes you just need to put a different perspective to what you intend to do.  Try making a game out of it to get you started.  That could be the first step to take you miles down the road of action.

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Listen To Your Heart, Hear The Music Of Your Soul

“Listen to the wind, it talks. Listen to the silence, it speaks. Listen to the heart, it knows” – Native American Proverb

The visual here is of listening to nature. The wind, the silence of the deep night, that is the time our heart speaks. The mind quiets in expectation of what might happen. It waits in silence to see what the soul wants to be expressed. Then it becomes busy with plans and ideas and arguments for and against every thought.

“It’s the heart that knows the path, the mind is just there to organize the steps”– Jeff Brown

Your heart knows things that your mind can’t explain. When you drop down into your heart to listen, it is like listening to God, as he answers our prayers. There is a peace to it that is hard to explain. There are what I term “Kairos” moments, where the connection to mind, body and soul are wide open. Into the depths of the open space time stands still. There is an awakening, a sigh, a moment of seeing something out of the corner of the eye. In the space between the inhale and exhale of breath God speaks to us.

Like the stillness of a lake, where not even the breath of wind disturbs the surface. Then there is a single rain drop that hits the center of the lake, and the ripple slowly spreads out to lap at the shoreline. Then another drop, and another drop, a downpour begins. The ripples expand out and over each other. The surface of the water is in chaos. Each ripple ends at a different part of the shore, spreading out the details and nuances of the message. And suddenly our soul knows the answer that we have been seeking. All of this happening between the inhale and the exhale.

“Open your heart to hear the sweet, pure, positive and loving messages of your soul” – Sue Krebs 

You will need some time to take in all of the messages received. Time to process, to both reason and accept without reasoning. When the mind, body and soul are all on a wide open connection, it can seem overpowering. But like the music of the orchestra, if you just slow down your life for a moment, you can hear each instrument as it enters and leaves the music being played.

Disconnect from the electronics for a space of time; no T.V. no radio, no IPhone, no internet. Just sit in contemplation, remembering the messages, the conversation. Just sit, listen and accept. Know that what journey your soul is telling you to take, it is the perfection of divine timing to begin it now.

“Be bold enough to use your voice, brave enough to listen to your heart and strong enough to live the life you’ve always imagined” – Unknown

Your mind will bring in the chaos of the world . Churning your mind into a tornado, it can tear huge holes in your inner peace. It can bring up every mistake, every omission, every single thing that can be viewed as failure to tell you not to take this journey. Not to step upon that particular path. It whips you and beats you with dark images until guilt pours over your heart, drowning it in sorrow that you are unworthy, incapable of going on this journey. It creates confusion and makes you feel lost from your purpose. That you didn’t really understand the message correctly.

“Talk to yourself in two languages – what do I fear and what do I love – in order to balance the body and the soul” – Peter Shepherd

That is when it is vital to listen to your heart and soul. Your heart and soul does not lie about who you are, and why you are here. Listening to your heart you will uncover a wild uncharted world. You will learn what is meant for you, not what others want for you.

When you follow the directions of the cars guidance system, you are listening to someone else tell you how to travel on your life’s journey. You will travel to your destination the fastest route, but are those directions the right way to your destination? You won’t pull off the freeway and travel the backroads. You won’t stop at interesting small towns and walk through shops and find treasures. You won’t meet that interesting older couple in a diner that talk about what it was like when they were young. You will miss out on the life you are supposed to be living.

It takes boldness and courage to listen, because if you are truly open hearted and honest, there are shadows within all of us. This is when you have to be bold in using your voice. You have to be brave enough to stand up, even as you acknowledge that you are not infallible. At your hearts core is a strength that will help you stay in the fight of living the life you have always imagined you could have. It is easy to plan out this kind of life, but life has a way of bypassing your plans and going off in its own directions.

When nothing is making sense in your life, that is when you have to fall in love with every detail of what is happening. When you have to remember, that life is happening for you, not to you. It really comes down to attitude and perspective in the end.

“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of the thing not meant for you” – Unknown

“People will want you to behave in a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world.  But you have to do what’s right for you” – Unknown

As always, if you can’t figure out the questions to ask yourself, if self discovery is a puzzle you’ve yet to solve – contact us.  We are here for you.

What Holds You Back From Success?

• What makes a person go after what they want?
• How do you figure out what “that” is?
• What does courage have to do with it?
• What does it mean to live safely?

It’s not what you are that holds you back, it’s what you think you’re not.   – Denis Waitley

This is such a profound quote – “You” are what holds you back.

You hold ourselves back, because you doubt yourself in some manner.

When LemonadeMakers was born, it was in response to the murder of my nephew.  His death altered the course of my life.  My life until that moment, was being lived completely in the safety zone.  I have a nice corporate job, which I had worked years to obtain.  I was successful in my career and was earning six figures.  Then everything changed.  Carl’s death started me questioning what I was really doing with my life.

Was I making a real difference to anyone?

The answer was while I had a comfortable lifestyle, and had accomplished all of the goals I set for myself, the truth was that I had not made a real difference in the world.  I realized that I had played my life safe.  I realized that if I died tomorrow, while my friends and family might miss me, the world wouldn’t realize I was gone.

The grand vision of LemonadeMakers  is a reality T.V. show, in which we follow the transformations of “normal” people in each of our hometowns, who are out in the world to make a difference.   I had no idea how to bring this dream into being.  I had a 34 year career in the financial industry and was successful in that field.  I had no connections with anyone in the entertainment industry.  I didn’t know of anyone in my own community who I could use as my first show.  I had no followers.

I didn’t have the anything in my life, to make something like that happen.  Like Denis said, what was holding me back, was what I didn’t think I was – a person who could make a sizzle reel and sell a T.V producer into making LemonadeMaers a reality T.V. show.

 What I knew is I needed to become the person who could.

A person who could attract and build a community of followers, who would want to watch this show.  A person who could locate the local community heroes to film their stories.  A person who could get introductions to the people in Hollywood that would say yes to this show.

For years I have dreamed of going to Petra in Jordan.  I have books and magazines that talk about the site.  For whatever reason, this site speaks to me more than any other place that I could visit in the world.  Why haven’t I went there?

Because it is still a poster on the wall.  Because it is a someday dream.  Because that dream is not yet coming from within me.  LemonadeMakers comes from within me.  It is like the air I breathe.  It is something that I work at every single day.  It is vital to my being alive.  It is my divine purpose.  It is my souls calling.

This vision taught me to let go of who I thought I was.

I thought that climbing the corporate ladder and earning six figures would make me happy.  It was what I was taught from an earlier age, to have a successful career.

For years I was the introvert that was invisible.  I hated being in crowds.  I never knew how to introduce myself to strangers and have a conversation.  I was comfortable being the fly on the wall that listened to what others had to say.  All of that has changed.  I let go of this need to not be seen.  Now I can step out on a stage of 600 – 700 people and talk for an hour about LemonadeMakers and see my vision take root in their hearts.

This vision made me realize that the corporate job I had put so much value in, was not what I really wanted my life to be about.   I have discovered hidden treasures that were buried deep within me.  I discovered that I can write about what is important to me, and that my writing strikes a chord in many people.  Somehow my reaction to Carl’s murder recalibrated my inner compass.  I had a new direction and a better destination.

I have made some mistakes in investing with a partnership that didn’t work out.  Having everything go as planned isn’t a learning experience.  It doesn’t change or transform you.  What I discovered about myself through that mistake was worth the price of admission, because I saw how I was still trying to play it safe by riding along on the coattails of the other business.

I discovered that the notion of being invisible was still playing a part in my life through this partnership.  Sometimes this journey has felt like I’m going to die, that it will never happen, that I’m not capable of being that person.  But every time those negative emotions poke their head out, I go back to curiosity.  I go back to wondering what the gift is I am not seeing yet.  And I start digging to expose it.

I have transformed again, and once again the wind is lifting my wings to a new experience of growth and change.  Transformation is an ongoing learning experience.  It is the journey of self discovery.   It is the understanding that change is not something to be scared of or to be avoided.  It is a natural part of your journey and the whole reason for having a destination.

I have discovered how important curiosity, anticipation, and expectation are to having fun with change and transformation.

Your journey will be different than mine.  What is the same however, is that whatever your journey uncovers is a gift.  Every roadblock.  Every detour.  Every storm, flood, earthquake, and tidal wave leaves behind a gift if you are willing to be curious.  It all boils down to “What are you doing to improve your life?”

So get excited over discovering in the debris left behind, the treasure it has exposes.  Your real life begins –

• When you believe in intuition.
• When you trust in your intuition.
• When you act from the space of imagination.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

5 Things to Quit – right now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

How Does One Become A Butterfly?

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

  – Steven Aitchison

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

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

  – Unknown

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

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

  – E.E. Cummings

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

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

  – Mary Oliver

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

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

  – Unknown

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

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

  – Steve Jobs

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

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Fear is like the Wizard of Oz

Fear is like the Wizard of Oz, projecting itself onto the screen, when in reality it is a small man behind the curtain. Don’t be afraid to move the curtain and expose the fear. Finding the blessing in the fear, is the opportunity to open your heart and mind to the idea of change and reinvention.

Sometimes we consciously choose to change. Other times we stumble upon ( notice the word stumble) an opportunity. Sometimes you trip over something and you catch yourself before the fall, hopping across the floor as you regain your balance. Other times you can trip over something that plants you face on the ground, and has you digging rocks off your skin. Either way there are still choices to make.

Not my movie, not my drama

This is a really profound quote. It really struck a chord in my heart because I so resonated with the underlying truth. Really sit with the words, “tell me why they were so comfortable to say what they were saying to you”. What do you see about yourself that may have attracted this?

So what does it say about me, that someone might come to me with some “juicy” gossip that they are spreading about someone I know. What signals am I broadcasting that they think I want to join in and be a part of something like that? How am I telling them that I love the drama of someone else’s downfall?

People for the most part will not say to you a mean or hurtful thing about someone that you really care about. People for the most part will not gossip with someone that they know won’t put up with it.

There are some minor exceptions to this rule, like my father in-law. Years ago we were staying with my in-laws waiting for the closing on our home. I had went up to the kitchen to get something and he was there. He went off on a tear down of his son, about how he was a disappointment , that all of my father in-laws failures could be traced back to his children. He said mean, hurtful cruel things about his son. Finally he ran out of steam, and I just looked at him and said, “so what kind of response are you looking for here? Why are you telling me these things? I love my husband and he isn’t anything like the son that you are describing”, and walked away. He is the exception to the rule because he is so unhappy in his life, and he doesn’t want to take responsibility for how it has turned out, so he goes around trying to tear you down to his level. The only thing you can do with someone who has a toxic personality is limit the exposure to them.

Years ago I adopted the saying, “not my movie, not my drama”, for when people that I work with start down the road of tearing down someone in their life. My sister says, “not my circus, not my monkeys”. I try very hard not to join in or be around those kinds of conversations. If they won’t let the conversation be turned to something positive, then I excuse myself and walk away.

What we need in our lives is more positive conversations; more love shown in both our words and out actions. More up building and less tearing down. More compassion and less drama. More celebrating of the positive accomplishments of people and less glorification of the tragedy that takes someone out.

This even plays out in the feedback we provide around customer service. How fast are we to complain to someone in charge when we are not treated the way we want, but do we have the same rate of speed to ask for someone in charge to praise a persons excellent customer service in taking care of you?

This quote takes it a little deeper for me that just avoiding the “drama queens”. It says that the quality of the conversations that I am part of is due in some part (large or small) to what I am attracting – knowingly or unknowingly. Gives me a slice of a shadow that I didn’t realize might still be there to work on rooting out.

What do you think about this quote? Does it say anything special to you?