Celebrate The Hero In Each Of Us, That Voice That Is Brave Enough To Say “Enough” And “No More”

“Strength doesn’t come from what you can do.  It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn’t” – Rikki Rogers

Life in a Jar . . .  a play written by school children in Kansas.  Tells the story of Irena Sendlerowa who saved around 2,500 Jewish babies from Nazi death camps.  Saying that what she did was nothing special, she said “I was brought up to believe that a person must be rescued when drowning, regardless of religion and nationality.  The term hero irritates me greatly.  The opposite is true.  I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little.”

She was captured by the Gestapo and beaten, breaking and crushing her legs and feet, and then driven away to be executed.  On the way, she was rescued.  She was never able to walk without crutches afterwards.

I think that most of us wonder if we would have had the strength and courage to do what Irena did.  Risk our lives for children that we didn’t know.  To survive that kind of beating.  To have the attitude of thinking that we could have done more than rescue 2,500 children.  She is a special kind of hero.

As brave as Irena was, think for a moment of being the mother who had to decide if she could give up her child.

What guarantee was there that this would in fact save her child?  Where did such inner strength come from?  Most of the parents who gave up their children did not survive the war and lost their lives in the death camps.

Put yourself in that place for just a moment, could you have given your child to Irena?  Their story is told in the PBS program, “Irena Sandler:  In the Name of Their Mothers”.

Harriet Tubman is another amazing woman.  Born a slave, she ran away leaving her husband and children to escape slavery.  Walking almost 90 miles to Philadelphia with no map, directions or help.  She returned to the South at least 19 times and lead her family and hundreds of other slaves to freedom via the Underground Railroad.  She was very intuitive and had dreams that would tell her when to leave the road, or that a particular way was not safe.

A movie about her life was made, called “A Woman Called Moses“.  She is an inspiration again, for standing up for what is right with bravery and courageous action.  After rescuing her family, the fact that she went back again and again, with a large bounty on her head for over 10 years makes her a monument to courage and determination.  She was also involved in helping women get the vote, working with Susan B Anthony.

“Believe in yourself and all that you are.  Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle” – Christian D. Larson

You could write story after story about amazing people who showed tremendous resilience and courage.  Who dug down deep within themselves to find their inner strength to live through trials and tribulations.  Who fought through the inner and outer darkness of their lives.

In fact, all of us have such stories within our own lives.  You may think that what you have done in your life doesn’t compare to the stories you have heard, the ones that you have labeled as heroes.  I am sure that if you were to talk with Malala Yousufzai, she would insist that what she did standing up in defiance to those who wanted to prevent her being educated, was nothing notable.  We are all Irena’s, and Harriet’s, and Malala’s.

Maya Angelou is another courageous woman, my hero.  Her writing and her wisdom are so inspiring.  One of my favorite quotes of hers, “I can be changed by what happens to me.  But I refuse to be reduced by it”.  We all face in our lives numerous times that test us.  Things can happen that can shatter you, that can pierce your soul.  But nothing that happens can reduce you to something less that you are.

“A strong woman knows she has strength enough for the journey, but a woman of strength knows it is in the journey where she will become strong” – Unknown

Like the water in a lake.  Something can cause large ripples that disturb your peace, that shatters your emotions.  The cause of the disturbance, like a large rock, might sink to the bottom of your lake, your soul.  It might forever change you, but it does not reduce you.

You still have the power to return to your inner and outer peace.  To continue to learn, grow, and transform your life.  To be curious as to what else is possible in your life.  To be an intelligent, courageous, loving woman who teaches others by being her best possible self.

Journal prompts:

• 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?

 

Have Faith That Everything Will Work Out For The Best

There is an inner beauty about a girl who believes in herself, who knows she is capable of anything that she puts her mind to.  There is a beauty in the strength and determination of a girl who follows her own path, who isn’t thrown off by obstacles along the way.  There is an inner beauty about a girl whose confidence comes from experiences, who knows she can fall, pick herself up and move on – Unknown

I love the last line.  When we step outside of our comfort zone, when we take a leap of faith, there are times we fall down.  It is part of the process.  When a baby starts crawling, then climbing up and walking along the furniture, they display the perfect attitude.  They take a step or two, with wobbly legs and almost no balance.  They fall on their butts.  They may cry.  But the next thing you know they are back to trying to take another step. 

We tell them “come to moma” and they get the biggest grins on their faces, so excited.  They take a wobbly step after wobbly step into the moms arms.  This is what walking outside the comfort zone is about.  Taking a first step and another, wobbling along the way.  Crashing and burning and getting back up until we can walk with perfect balance and ease.

She was unstoppable. not because she did not have failures or doubts, but because she continued on despite them  – Unknown

No matter how many defeats we encounter, we can recover.  We are resilient and we don’t “cry uncle”, we figure out another way around the obstacle and continue on.  Along our life journey we can expect that there will be times when we become lost to our purpose and passion in life.  We may encounter some sort of addiction problem; we may go through the loss of a spouse or child that sends us off the deep end; we may have severe health issues that make us wonder if we want to continue living; we may encounter mental health issues.  What we need to understand is that there isn’t any mistake or issue in our life that we can’t rise up out of.

Strong Woman – you may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.  In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it  – Maya Angelou

Recovery from anything goes through a process.  Good days, bad days.  You will sometimes feel all alone and maybe even abandoned by others.  The flip side of that feeling is that you are now empowered to help others who are struggling.  Your friends and family may not understand what you are going through.  Instead of bottling up your struggle or judging them as insensitive, you have the opportunity to try to explain in a million different ways.  Sometimes if they haven’t walked in your shoes, it is like trying to explain the fax machine to a two year old.  You can explain how it works a million different ways, but they won’t understand.  So that has to be ok.  Sometimes we just have to accept, “it is what it is” and move onward.

Whenever we begin to feel as if we can no longer go on, hope whispers in our ear to remind us that we are strong – Robert M Hensel

Your problems won’t magically go away, but as you recover they will become more and more manageable.  The days of overwhelm will get fewer.  As you go through the process of recovery, you will change in many small and large ways.  It is hard to see the changes yourself.  It is like when you have a 12 month old who is learning how to walk, run, and talk.  They are growing like crazy, but we don’t really notice until nothing they have fits.  But if you were to go on a trip for two weeks and come back to that toddler, you would immediately see all of the changes in growth and things that they are doing.  Others notice the changes faster than we do, because they have the space away from us.

Working hard for something we don’t care about is called stress.  Working hard for something we love is called passion – Unknown

The important thing to remember when we are going through any kind of recovery, is the end result that we are working towards.  What we are fighting for.  Working out everyday at the gym results in our becoming happier, healthier, stronger, as step by step we are recovering.  There may be times in the fight where we miss guarding ourselves and get punched.  We may fall to the ground, breathing heavy, wondering if we can get back up.  What we have to remember is that as long as we get back up, keep fighting for our wholeness, we have not lost.

Sometimes when you’re in a dark place, you think you’ve been buried, but you’ve actually been planted.  – Unknown

Take the time to breathe.  It seems simple, but have you ever we taken a yoga class and been reminded that you are holding your breath and you need to breathe?  Or maybe doing something on a machine in the gym and the instructor is reminding you to breathe?  There are times were we seem to hold our breath, because something is somewhat painful.  There are times when are so excited or angry that we forget to breathe.  The proverb of taking 10 deep breaths before speaking or acting comes into play here.  When we take really deep full belly breaths it somehow seems to disconnect us from our runaway emotions and allows our brain to reconnect and begin to direct our thoughts. 

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same  – Carlos Castenada

If we take those 10 deep full belly breaths right now, you will see what I mean.  It will allow you to see some patterns, some logical reasoning comes back into your space and you can see how although the recovery was painful, it does have some wonderful jewels buried right alongside of you.  There are some positive things that you have learned about yourself on this journey.  Today is the best day to celebrate with gratitude those gifts.  Believe in yourself again.  Love those around you and most importantly love yourself.  Live, Laugh, Love and celebrate life again.

Discover Your True Story

You tell me to quiet down cause my opinions make me less beautiful.  But I was not made with a fire in my belly so I could be put out.  I was not made with a lightness in my tongue so I could be easy to swallow.  I was made heavy – half blade and half silk.  Difficult to forget but not easy for the mind to follow – Rupi Kaur

Life gives us a lot of experiences.  They run the whole emotional scale.  You fall from ecstatic joy to pain that leaves you whimpering in the corner, wishing that death would come and take you away from it.  Life gives you the experience of Heaven, Hell and every realm between.  Like clay you are formed and molded by your life experiences.  Like clay you go through the fire.

But you have a choice about what that fire does to you.  You can choose to become rigid, brittle and defined by those fires, so that everyone you meet hears about your horrific life.  Or you can choose to become refined by the fire, tempered by it and made stronger.

Why would you fear the fire?  Because when you are refined by the fire, it exposes you.  You become vulnerable. You have to own the good, the bad, and the ugly and beautiful parts of who you are.  To be ok to be perfectly, imperfect.

People will see the ugly parts of you, and you have to acknowledge that that is part of who you are.  You can’t deny it, you can’t make it be less than it is, you can’t say it doesn’t exist, and that somehow that ugly bit of you is actually someone else’s fault.  You can’t say I lost my temper, and it was that person’s fault.  That they deserved your going nuclear on them.

The fire shines the light on you.  If you stand up in that light and acknowledge who you are, then you have the opportunity to transform it.  You can release the negativity, shift it, and change it into something better.

She wasn’t looking for a knight, she was looking for a sword – Atticus

You might have this mix of fairy tale dreams where you want someone to take care of you, and yet at the same time you fiercely do not want someone to fix you.  You are not looking to be fixed.  You are not broken, or damaged, or needing to be rescued.

That is judging your experience without knowing the whole story.  That is making assumptions of what your dreams are made up of.  That is not understanding what your destiny is preparing you for.

You don’t need a hero, you are one.  What you need is a sword to cut out of us all of the parts that do not serve you, and do not belong as part of you.

Promise yourself that you can and will do better.  Hold yourself to not looking back.  Learn from the past but don’t live there.  Leave the baggage at the airport and travel lightly through life.  Anything that shattered you wasn’t meant for you.

You have this habit sometimes of holding on to something that doesn’t serve you.  You stay in the job, where you’re experiencing bullying, where you’re put down because you believe in some way it is true.  You stay in the job where you are experiencing harassment because you tell yourself you need “this” job.  You stay in a relationship that burns your soul, sacrificing yourself because they say they love you even when their actions tell you it is a lie.

Don’t continue to dance on the broken glass, thinking that you can somehow fix it.  It will just slice your soul and shred your spirit.

You can’t let other people tell you who you are.  You have to decide that for yourself – Unknown

At some point you have to change the situation.  Instead of being battered by the storm, you have to become the storm.  In order to thrive you have to become fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.  You have to put on your life jacket and abandon the sinking ship, with the knowledge that you will be okay.

It might not be today or tomorrow, but the storm will always play itself out.  The sun will shine again.  You are valuable, you are a Goddess, and you must firmly believe that with all of your heart and soul.

She was powerful, not because she wasn’t scared but because she went on so strongly, despite the fear – Atticus

This kind of power comes from the place of not needing anyone to validate who you are.  To get to that space, you have to have gone through the refining fires.  You have to have exposed your vulnerable places, your ugly thoughts and actions.  You have brought the light to all of the dark corners of your heart.  When you have faced who you really are without the masks, without the excuses and justifications, fear gets burnt out of you.

Fear is a choice, and you can choose not to live at its address any longer.

When we accept who you are, you lose false pride.  When you own “this is who I am” fear loses its grip on you.  You are ready.  You are willing.  It is time to go out and fight for your dreams.  You no longer feel that you are obligated to prove your worth to anyone, and if they are demanding that you do so, you walk away.

Once upon a time you were a little girl with big dreams that you promised you’d make real one day.  Don’t disappoint yourself – Unknown

Destiny Gives Us Fairy Tales

The winds scattered my leaves but my roots remained firm.  They tried to wound me, but I grew stronger in the broken places.  I wondered if I would survive, but then I saw a sparkle . . . My tiara was a little tangled perhaps but it never fell off after all.

  – Jane Lee Logan

When we were children we touched dragonflies and reached for the stars.  We talked to the moon and danced through the forest with the fairies.  We saw wonder and believed in happy endings.  What we may not have realized is that the happy ending, was just that moment in time.  That there was more to the story.  The heroes journey doesn’t end.  There are always more challenges, more growth.  Change, transformation, life continues ever onward.  The end is never really the end.

Love your whole story even if it hasn’t been the perfect fairy tale.

  – Melanie Moushigian Kouloruis

In the ups and downs of life, our story goes by the meaning we put to it.  How many times have you heard of someone being laid off or fired?  They are anxious, panicked, and feel like the world has ended.  But at some point, they start their own business, or get hired at a new company and the next thing you hear is how losing that job was the best thing that ever happened.  What changed?  The meaning they were putting to their own story.

We long for a fairytales in a world full of nightmares.

  N.C.

It really is about the meaning that you give to what is currently happening in your life.  We seem to feel that life should be all roses, and forget that the roses also have thorns.  Is it a rosebush or a thornbush?  Look at the fairy tales themselves.  Peter Pan had Captain Hook, pirates and the Crocodile.  Snow White had the Evil Queen and her minions.  Ariel had her father, the Sea Witch.  There are always obstacles, failures, dragons and demons.  They help us to grow by overcoming them.

If I’m honest I have to tell you I still read fairy tales and I like them best of all.

  – Audrey Hepburn

From the Genie in the bottle, we learned to form our wishes with a lot of thought and detail, because otherwise they will turn on us.  We find helpers along the way.  We fight through our fears.  We become less judgmental and more compassionate as we see how hard life can be.  We become better people.  The reason why there is a happy ending, is that the characters did not give up.

Love is overcoming obstacles, facing each challenge with integrity.  Love is difficult to define and it begins with learning to truly love ourselves.  Love is realizing that the world or life, doesn’t just happen to us, it happens because of us.  And every single challenge, obstacle, and opportunity that happens is worth it.  It is worth it because when you believe in “YOU”, you can make anything happen.

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.

  – C.S. Lewis

I loved the Lewis Carroll line, “the best gift you could give her was a lifetime of adventures” because it comes back to the meaning that we give to what is happening in our lives.  If you look at this as a lifetime of adventures, you can be Princess Lea, or Indiana Jones.  If you look at the movies they played in, they had a lot of bad things happen.  They lost loved ones, lost homes, failed in epic battles.  But they also believed that in the end, good wins.  And if your “good” isn’t doing so well right now, then it isn’t the end.  You are still in the middle of your adventure.  Or maybe you’re at the scene right before the end, where everything is dark and tragic and stacked up against you so high, there is no way you can win.  But if you keep moving forward, no matter how hard that step by step is, you are about to get your second wind and turn it all around.

All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.

  – Walt Disney

We need both courage and imagination to live the life we dream of.  I am a huge Princess Bride fan.  This reminds me of two scenes in the movie – one is when Wesley is on the bed.  He is still not fully recovered from being mostly dead.  He can hardly move, and the prince comes in to finish him off.  Wesley challenges him “to the pain” and describes in great horrific detail what will happen to him should they fight.  The prince ends up giving up without a fight.  The whole time Wesley was completely vulnerable, but he didn’t just give up.  Using his creative imagination he bluffed his way into victory from a place of complete defeat.  The other scene is when Inigo Montoya finds the six fingered man and starts fighting him.  At one point it appears that he is going to die and fail to avenge his father.  But then he gets that second wind and defeats him.  Both stories had that climax when it seemed all was dark and failure was imminent.  But they kept going, one using a bluff, and one using the years of training and preparation to win the battle.

I’m a romantic and I kinda believed in this fairy tale.  And in some ways I think that’s always been to my advantage, because if you can believe in something great, you can achieve something great.

  – Katy Perry

Every night you dream.  In your dreams about your life are these seeds of greatness.  Your heart and soul speak to you in dreams.  They put a little soil around those seeds of greatness.  They water them.  They weed out of your life the things that don’t belong.  They weed out the things that are holding you back.  But at the end of the day, it is up to you to take those small plants and put them out into the world to grow into what they are supposed to be.  We see it happen all around us everyday.  People using their imagination and technology are out there creating products, businesses, services.  They are giving back to their community.  They are making a difference in the world, by doing what others say can’t be done.  Then there are the ones who never transplant their dreams into the world, but hold them tightly in the dark spaces of their souls.  They are so afraid of the dream, that they stunt it into a characticture of what it might have been.

A dream is a wish your heart makes. 

  – Unknown

 Remember Mary Poppins – “Anything can happen if you let it.”  Just because you lose a shoe at midnight, it doesn’t mean that you walk home barefoot.  Maybe it means a new pair of dancing shoes!  And who doesn’t want a new pair of shoes?

Your Saving Grace Is To Be Your Own Hero

Can you imagine this conversation between two people looking out over the water and seeing a hand reach up out of the water?

Can’t you see she is drowning?

She’s just doing that for attention.

Someone should help her.

If we acknowledge her, then she’ll never stop.

I think she is in danger.

She’s just feeling sorry for herself.

It’s too late now.  She is gone.

Why didn’t she ask for help?

This conversation plays out in all of our lives at some time.  For me it was my daughter was close to two years old,.  She wasn’t talking.  Literally no words.  She had sounds, so she wasn’t mute.  She just didn’t say mama or dada or anything.  I had taken her to doctors and they determined that physically there was nothing wrong.  She could hear fine.  She understood what you were saying, she just couldn’t communicate back.  So they said I should force her to talk. That she wasn’t talking because I gave her want she was trying to ask for.  They said, “When she was indicating that she wanted something, don’t give it to her unless she says the word”.  So we had a painful few months of following the doctors directions.  Then I took her back and demanded to see some specialist.  This issue was not that she didn’t want to say the words, the issue was that something wasn’t connecting correctly.

So we saw the specialist, and they couldn’t figure out anything that was wrong.  So they told us to put her in daycare.  They felt she wasn’t around enough children.  Even though she had an older brother, cousins and friends her age from church – that wasn’t sufficient.  So we put her in daycare,  Another bad decision as it made her stand out.  When they were sharing in circle time and she couldn’t verbalize her sounds into real words, she became even more withdrawn.  So again, back to the doctors.  Finally they authorized speech therapy.,  The area we lived in had a school she attended for four hours a day.  They had a two to one ratio of speech therapist teachers who worked with her and the other children, who all had some sort of speech disability.  Within 6 months she had a 100 word vocabulary and she was finally able to express herself.  It took me one whole year to get her the help she needed.

I felt like I was having that conversation with those doctors, that I typed above  I knew she had a problem and they were not listening or helping.  They were just making things worse.  Fortunately I kept after them until she got the help she needed.  She had delayed speech, and it was an inherited condition.  I discovered later that one of my grandfathers daughters from his first marriage had the same thing happen with one of her grandchildren.  And my daughter had the same thing happen with a couple of her own children.  It was not that she was doing it for attention.  It was not that trying to help her get what she wanted but couldn’t tell us, was just encouraging bad behavior.  She was asking for help.

Ships don’t sink because of the water around them; ships sink because of the water that gets in them.  Don’t let what’s happening around you get inside you and weigh you down.

  – Unknown

Have you ever been the person asking for help?  Did it feel like people were watching and talking, but no one could hear you through the water?  This happened to me when I was 28 years old.  I had been diagnosed with Glaucoma.  They didn’t want to do surgery because I was so young.  A lot of times when you are young and healthy, when they do laser surgery on your eyes, your eyes think that the surgery is a problem and “repair” the surgery back to what it thinks is the normal way for the eye to be.  So we were trying out three different drugs.  The first on didn’t work at all.  The second one had a side effect of making me suicidal.  I could tell it was making me depressed and giving me dark thoughts.  I was struggling with it, but it was making me afraid to talk about it.  I finally was able to tell the doctor what was happening and he put me on the third drug.  Due to different side effects I ended up doing the surgery.

I was talking to my husband about the second drug and asking him if he couldn’t see what was happening.  He said, that he could see it, but was so afraid of putting me over the edge I was balanced on that he did nothing.  We talked about it for some time.  I explained, that what that did was to make me feel like he didn’t care.  That even if what he said or did was not the perfect thing, at least I would have known that he was trying, that he cared.  Instead I felt abandoned and that he didn’t care about me.  Like the woman in the story, I felt like I was reaching for help and he was just watching me drown.

We all have bad days.  We all witness others having bad days.  Sometimes those bad days turns into weeks and months and years.  We are crying out for help.  We feel abandoned.  We all watch it happening to someone we know or love, and we don’t know what to do.  So we do nothing, or we get bad advice from experts and do the wrong thing.  What we need to do is go to divine source.  The divine source speaks to us in our hearts.  When we reach out to others from that space, even if what we do is not the perfect thing to do, they see that we are trying from a space of love and compassion. Not from a space of judgment, or making someone be wrong. 

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water.  When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do, you will sink and drown.  Instead you relax, and float.

  – Alan Watts

We need to realize when we are drowning and ask for help.  We need seek deep within to find what it is that is currently trying to be exposed and released from our life.  A wrong belief that is holding us hostage.  A drug or alcohol addiction.  A relationship that is killing us, but we won’t let go of.  That we are trying to save someone, who is just taking us down with them.  When we try to save broken people, we need to take care that we don’t cut ourselves on their broken pieces.  So many patterns, addictions, issues of self sabotage.  They need to be released so that we can again relax and float.  Life sometimes takes us to the edge, but it is always within our control, it is our choice to be a victim, or we can decide that this life can and will be better and we are a thriver. 

Life sometimes takes you into troubled waters not to drown you but to cleanse you.

  – Unknown

 So when we find ourselves in deep water.  Relax and float.  Reach out for help, but always remember it really comes down to being our own hero.  No one else can fix us, and we can fix anyone else.  It is always an inside job. 

 

 

Chaos Is A Key To Change And Transformation

In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.

  – Deepak Chopra

Chaos is actually a good sign.  It tells you that you are about to have a breakthrough.  I love this photo – we literally have the elephant in the room.  It is being ignored and creating chaos.  Chairs and tables are being destroyed, dishes crashing to the floor, and she is sitting there like “what?”  Chaos is one of the keys that tells us things are about to change.  We have the ability to choose in this situation.  We can continue to ignore the “elephant in the room” or we can acknowledge it and start to deal proactively with the changes happening in our life.

All great changes are preceded by chaos.

  –  Unknown

All of the great inventions have come from a place of chaos.  When you think outside of the box, it is in a place of chaos.  All of the possibilities are buzzing around your head, all trying desperately to get your attention. It is being willing to be told you are stupid and foolish to think that you can be an agent of change.  A chaos agent.  Someone who stirs things up.  Look at the disruptors currently bringing change in our world.  3D printing is on the brink of being able to create organs that can be used to transplant and save lives.  They are creating car parts, hearing aids, and implants.

Madness is somewhere between chaos and having a dream.

  – R.M. Drake

Soon every piece of personal information, drivers license, credit cards, bank accounts, your id card for work will all be digital and take just your thumb print or a scan of a chip located within your body.  Virtual reality will soon impact with endless possibilities beyond gaming.  Our houses will soon be totally controlled with the “internet of everything”.  More and more of everyday life will become fully automated, such as self driving cars.  Think of every science fiction movie or book you have read and we are quickly approaching the implementation of that fantasy becoming our reality.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join in the dance.

  – Alan W Watts

When life is crazy and the chaos is driving us mad – faith in the divine plan gives us an anchor.  It keeps us steady in the raging storm, so that when the storm has passed, we can pick up the pieces of our life and carry on.  It gives us a vision to hold on to that can keep us calm  in the midst of the insanity.  And if we are courageous, we can let go of the expectations of how our life should be and see instead how our life could be.  When you let go of the expectations, you make space for something better.

Never mind your ideas of how things should look, your expectations of how things must be.  Life will scramble all of that into an unrecognizable chaos.  The difficulty, the joy, the privilege is in being undone and then creatively reshaping yourself into a form you never imagined could be so beautiful.

  – Amy Larsen

When the chaos creates frustration, it is because we have become confused.  A lack of clairity creates the frustration.  It is a poisonous emotion, stopping us from achieving our dreams.  We need to step out of this negative emotion, out of the darkness.  Release the frustration and get back into curiosity about what is happening.  Curiosity about what old belief we have outgrown that is expressing itself thorugh the frustration.  And get curious about what new something is being born into our life.

Life has dark moments and it is out of our darkness that we often find our greatest beauties and strengths.

  – Bryant McGill

 Chaos is only a problem when we get stuck in it.  If in every place we go, the elephant is in the room wrecking all of the furniture, then we need to seriously examine our life.  That kind of chaos is not a predictor of change, but rather an avoidance of making changes.  Chaos is a bridge to take us from where we currently are in our life, to where we are seeking to go.  A bridge makes the connection from one side ( where we are ) to the other side  ( where we want to be ).  You use it to travel across the river or lake, or across the ravine.  You don’t park on the bridge and live the rest of your life there, afraid to go forwards or backwards.  It is our self-identifying with the chaos, as though that is who we are, that will keep us in the darkness.  While life and chaos will give us those dark moments, it is not who we are.

Change is growth.  It is living life.  It is about recognizing and being conscious of what the journey is teaching us about ourselves.  Becoming conscious, becoming self aware.  It is recognizing the elephant is in the room.  Is it being self destructive and needing to be addressed?  Or is it just sitting there waiting to be called into action?

In Order To Change The World, You Must Be The Change

“Only I can change my life.  No one can do it for me”  –  Carol Burnett

This photo so clearly explains why other people don’t get the transformations that you are being called to make in your life.  There are two different levels of perception here.  And each person can only see their own level of perception.  Both are true.  I can explain what I see with twenty thousand words, and if your level of perception is contained in the world she is pulling away, dark depressing and dreary, you will never see the sunshine that I do.

 “Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands”  – Clint Eastwood

The better you know yourself the better you can embrace change.  Self knowledge is vital, because your subconscious minds run these programs behind the scenes.  Your subconscious like things exactly the way they are.  It will try to keep you in your comfort zone.  You need to let go of the old programs.

Most of the fears that you have, are fears of the unknown.  Those fears feature negative programing.  This programming will keep you stuck in the shadows, in the dark.  It will keep you from perceiving what else is possible.  I know that for myself when I have a medical issue, waiting for test results is the worst.  My mind goes crazy thinking of all of the possible worst case scenarios.  I am definitely in a dark place with wild imagining of brain tumors, cancer, a failing organ, and so on.

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”  – Socrates

But once I have a diagnosis, it all changes.  Now I am researching and figuring out how to cure the issue and become healthy again.  Now I have something tangible to work towards.  The unknown has been removed and that fear is dissolved.  I am free again to begin making positive changes for my health and my life.

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

That doesn’t mean that fear doesn’t show up again.  It does.  But if you are being honest with yourself, you can identify the unknown piece that is creating the fear and remove it with new knowledge.

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow.  If we don’t grow, we aren’t really living”  – Gail Sheehy

How do you know when fear of the unknown is showing up in your life?

• It shows up whenever you find yourself avoiding something that needs to be done
• It shows up when you find that your progress towards a dream is slowing down
• It shows up when you begin to lose passion and fire towards the dream.
• It shows up when you begin to feel like you are wading through the mud instead of flowing down the stream.

Whenever these feelings start to exist, it is time to get quiet in your mind.  To sit quietly and ask your inner knower

• “What am I not seeing?”
• “What is it that is slowing me down or sidetracking me?”
• “What research can I do to bring light to this area?”

“I am on the hunt for who I’ve not yet become”  – Unknown

Once you identify the fear, then sit with it a while longer.  See what lies beneath that fear.  I can guarantee that there is always another layer.  Fears tend to travel in packs like wild dogs.  Each dog having its own fear.  Once you think you have given each dog a name, now you can make the dog stop its barking by addressing its own particular fear.

You will know if you are successful because you will feel the energy and passion return to your dream.  All of a sudden you will feel flow happening and that progress is being made.  It is like a hose that has a kink in it.  At first it feels like you are not getting any water pressure.  But once you find the kink and straighten it out, the water comes rushing out at full force.

“Change can be beautiful when we are brave enough to evolve with it, and change can be brutal when we fearfully resist”  – Bryant McGill

The key is to pay attention to what is happening in your life.  It is so easy to get lost and sidetracked.  It is so easy for the fears so sneak up on you and gain control.  It is also easy to stop and listen to your heart and soul for guidance.

“It doesn’t matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop”  – Unknown

It takes practice to check in with yourself on a regular basis.  Meditation and journaling are two practices that will help you to keep track of where you are, and wake you up if you start to fall asleep.

I know how much my writing helps me to catch myself when I start to get sidetracked.  It brings my energy back up into the higher vibrations.  These higher vibrations are a vital part of bringing your dreams into reality.  Remind yourself of what you have already transformed in your past.  Take courage that you can transform whatever is currently in front of you now.  Truly, the better you know yourself, the better you can embrace what is now changing in your life.

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 side track you? Are you unclear on what your life purpose is or how to bring it into reality?

If not, contact LemonadeMakers via messenger.  We can talk – asking and thinking about the right questions will open doors for you.

I Am What I Choose To Become

“Today I am discovering who I am.  Today I am becoming my person, worthy of developing all of me.  Today I am beginning to know that I am okay the way I am”  – Ruth Fishel

Discovering who you are requires that you go on a journey.  You can’t become who you are trying to become by remaining where you are, or what you are.  This journey begins with curiosity.  Asking the hard questions of ourselves.  Where am I going?  What am I learning from what I read, what I listen to, what I am watching on TV?  What do those I associate with have me thinking about?  Are the answers to these questions what I want my life to be about?  It isn’t chance that helps me to become what I am seeking.  It is making transformational life changes that does that.

“If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored.  One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things”  – Henry Miller

When you start out on this journey of self discovery, you think that if you can just learn enough, take in enough knowledge that you will develop the wisdom to become the person you want to be.  It is the natural first step, and you may get lost in this first step.

• You are doing a lot of work, but it just doesn’t seem like you are making any progress.
• You keep departing, but it doesn’t feel like we are ever arriving.

There is this gap.  You keep stuffing it with creative ideas, and plans, and dreams – but it doesn’t seem like you are creating anything that truly bridges that gap.

I love the word GAP – because it is Gods Area of Preparation.  That is why it doesn’t seem like the bridge is ever getting completed.  The  gap will be bridged when divine timing and actions have been completed.  Don’t give up.  Keeping fighting to reach the other side of the gap.

“I love the person I’ve become, because I fought to become her”  – Kaci Diane

I remember the true story of an Olympic Athlete.  She went to a sports camp as a child and demonstrated some talent with volleyball.  The coach told her that if she worked hard, it would give her a scholarship to college.  So she worked hard and when it came time, she wrote to the colleges with a good volleyball program and asked them to come see her play.  She got her teachers to write letters about her and was successful in getting a full ride to college.

Her senior year in college she was watching the Olympic Games and decided to chase the dream of being in the Olympics.  So again, she wrote letters to come see her play and got her professors to write letters and was successful in getting into the tryouts.  She spent a week in tryouts and worked hard, and even though she felt the other players were better she made it to the team.  The team lived and worked in Southern California for 4 years to the next Olympic Games.

During that time she realized that if she was going to be on the team that played in the games, she needed to tear her game down and rebuild it.  Now think about this – she was good enough to get a full ride into college.  In college she was All American.  She tried out and was accepted on the Olympic Team.  Obviously she was talented and skilled.  But she knew that she could be more, so she fought to be more.

“I always did something I was a little not ready to do.  I think that’s how you grow.  When there’s that moment of “wow, I’m not really sure I can do this” and you push through those moments, that’s when you have a breakthrough”  – Marissa Meyer

So when we are having a bad day, week, month or year – that is something to remember.  Sometimes we need to tear ourselves back down to the foundations of who we are, and rebuild.

Take all of the lessons that we have learned in this life, all of the crazy experiences, hurts, blessings in disguise and know that none of it was a mistake.  Find positive ways to be in the world.  Make a difference, no matter how small it feels.  We can be the change we want to see in our world.

• Be open to the challenge of change.
• Face our fears of not being enough, not knowing enough, and do the things we know need to be done, even if it terrifies us.
• Love who and what you are, and who you are becoming.
• Trust that you have within you everything that you need to do so.
• Believe in yourself.
• Wish upon the stars and then put faith in that wish coming true.

“Do not confuse the word “belief” with the word “wish”.  The two are not the same . . .  the element of faith is the only sure power by which a wish may be translated into a belief, and a belief into a reality”  – Napoleon Hill

It can be really scary, to keep going when you are in the part of change that you have to move mountains.  You see the pain, the heartache, the mistakes that you are making along the way.  You judge yourself, and cower in fear.  You wish it would all just go away and leave you lying in the middle of the floor, just a shapeless puddle of confusion and fears.

Instead,  get up.  Shake off the confusion, face the fear and walk in in the power of who you really are.  Remember that it isn’t what happens to you that defines you.  It isn’t the mistakes you made along the way that defines you.  What defines you is who you chose to become in spite of all of it.  At the end of the journey, the only one who is responsible for who you become is you.  You are a work in progress.  Each day is a new day.  A new pattern of thoughts.  A new wave of emotions, A new belief that you can become whatever you wish to become.

“You’ll learn as you get older, that rules are made to be broken.  Be bold enough to live life on your own terms, and never ever apologize for it.  Go against the grain, refuse to conform, take the road less traveled instead of the well-beaten path.  Laugh in the face of adversity, and leap before you look.  Dance as though everybody is watching.  March to the beat of your own drummer.  And stubbornly refuse to fit it”  – Mandy Hale

Windwalkers – The Eagles Among Us

Soaring in solitude,
Grandfather Eagle calls to me as he circles high above.
With a few strokes his wings push him higher,
even higher above mother earth.

His razor vision upon me,
he reminds me that I have the gift of inner vision
to see far off in the distance of my own journey.

Just as he sometimes soars on the air currents,
and other times beats his wings to fly against the wind,
I too can adjust my journey to meet what is coming down the road to meet me.

As he circles overhead,
he conserves his energy by gliding with the air currents.
I am reminded of the need for rest,
to not be constantly pushing my body to exhaustion.

He appears to be drifting,
but one pump of his wings reminds me that action
is always needed to remain in forward motion and go the full distance.

At all times he is connected to mother earth,
staying grounded with his vision.
He always remembers where home is. I see he flies with purpose.

If I am to remain strong in my vision,
I too must be grounded into our mother’s soul,
so that I am not blown off course by the winds of distraction.

He flexes his talons and cries out again
reminding me that I must listen to my intuition
in order to know when to take flight,
and when to stand strong and fight for the vision within me.

I must be strong enough to not only give birth to it,
but to also grow it into maturity.
I must know when it is time to leave the nest,
stretch out my wings and take flight.

He shows me visions of his long journey,
I see high above the ground the hundreds of miles he has flown,
from new moon to new moon,
over the mountains, the desert, hills, valleys, lakes, and rivers he has seen.

He speaks to me of his great courage
in his willingness to explore the unknown,
to not just look in the light,
but to peer into the dark shadowed places.

He is not terrified of the emptiness of the unknown.
I see the great lesson from the creator that he is teaching,
to not be afraid to journey into places and experiences that are unknown.

Even the dark places have important lessons to be learned.
He plummets out of the sky dropping without sound,
and with perfect accuracy catches his prey unaware.

As he climbs back into the heights,
he calls out to see if I understand the import of yet another lesson,
that of being here now.

The prey was not aware of the danger approaching.
The prey was living in either the past which can’t be changed,
or the future which hasn’t yet happened.

I nod my head grateful for the reminder
to be alert to what is happening around me,
so that I don’t miss the messages that the great creator sends me.

The Windwalker alone of all birds’
flies above the rain instead of landing until storms ends.

He reflects that those with the Windwalkers gifts
must never allow circumstances to deflect us from our purpose,
but instead gather our courage and stretch our limits.

By flying higher,
we gain a greater perspective,
we can see that while others might be shortsighted
and think we are in retreat,
we are in fact advancing high above the clouds.

We do not let hardships bring us down into hiding,
but we continue onwards in our journey.

His sharp beak and strong jaw muscles
reflect the importance of knowing when to speak,
how much to say,
and how strong the words need to be
in order to impart the lessons of the past
and those visions yet to happen.

The Windwalkers,
like many of our earth’s brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom,
have many lessons to teach us
reminding us of what we already know but have forgotten.

We must have the eyes to see,
the ears to listen,
and the wisdom into our heart,
to them implement it in our lives.

When you hear the cry of the eagle,
Stop,
and contemplate what his reminder to you might be.

Curiosity Is The First Step In Awakening The Soul

“Many of us step foot on to the path to spiritual enlightenment expecting it to lead us onward and upward, hoping to become something better than we are, and ready to gather all of the important things we need along the way.  What a surprise it is when we eventually realize that this path isn’t taking us onward but inward, that we’re not gather things so much as letting them go, and that there was never anything more to aspire to than the truth of what we already are” – Cristen Rodgers

Something will occur in your life when the soul is ready to wake up.  It could be a health scare or near-death experience that you have.  It could be losing a parent, spouse or child.  Loss of identity when you lose your job.  A divorce.  Then come the signs of feeling that your life is empty, devoid of real meaning and purpose.

It is as though you are lost in the woods, and you keep trying to find a trail back to your car.  You keep wandering and you’re starting to panic.  You feel as though something is lost or missing in your life.  Like there is this giant hole that you keep walking around.  You don’t know what it means, except that you have to find something to make your life meaningful.

You start questioning everything you have been taught.  Either you have abandoned God, or you feel he has abandoned you.  There is a sense of injustice.  You feel like a blind person groping about in the darkness in a strange place.  Loved ones may be trying to help you, and you just want everyone to leave you alone.  In fact it seems to be a necessity if you are to figure this out – you must be alone.

“Fortunately, some are born with spiritual immune systems that sooner or later give rejection to the illusory worldview grafted upon them from birth through social conditioning.  They begin sensing that something is amiss, and start looking for answers.  Inner knowledge and anomalous outer experiences show them a side of reality others at oblivious to, and so begins their journey of awakening.  Each step of the journey is made by following the heart instead of following the crowd and by choosing knowledge over the veils of ignorance” – Henri Bergson

It is the being alone that allows you to go within.  Solitude is important when you start on this path to enlightenment.  You need for space for just sitting and going within.  To connect, to see what is crying out to be released as not being part of your authentic self.  To regenerate and renew the pieces of you that were killed off as part of social conditioning.  The parts you buried because you were told it wasn’t safe to be who you really are.  It takes a great deal of courage to go within and choose to be your true self.

When you start down this path, you will think you are missing something.  Think back to the Wizard of Oz and the journey down the yellow brick road.  Toto was a catalyst for Dorothy always running off when Dorothy was needing to wake up and become conscious about something.  The first thing she found on the journey was the ruby slippers.  She had no idea of the power of the slippers and they remained dormant until she was enlightened enough to correctly use them.

The Scarecrow, The Tin Man, The Cowardly Lion, they all had what they were looking for.  The journey for them, was to look inside and expand their boundaries and eliminate their limitations.  To realize their full potential.  They weren’t missing anything.  They just needed to awaken to who they already were.  To choose to be better.  To let go of doubts and stories.  You tell yourself similar stories about not being capable of doing something.  The Wizard of Oz cast of characters needed to gather enough experience, to have the confidence that they were more than enough.

As you walk down your own yellow brick road of self-discovery, you will uncover the enlightenment that you’re seeking.  You will discover who you are deep within your heart and soul.  You will grow and transform into who you are destined to become.  Your life experiences have been designed specifically, to help you learn the skills required to fulfill your destiny.

Instead of continuing to conform to others ideas of who you should be, you choose to listen to the guidance of your own soul’s voice.  To travel the unexplored path, to think outside of the box, to be curious and question everything you have been taught.  To discover the impossible journey.

Curiosity is the beginning of awakening.  It is the first step on the path to discover who you are, what your purpose is, what feeds your soul.  When you get curious you start exploring the world around you with different eyes.  You get clarity about what to release and leave behind, as you see what no longer fits who you are becoming.  You open up to new things; new truths, new understandings, new awakenings.  You create the magic of uncovering who you are.

The treasures of gifts you never acknowledged.  You let go of fear after fear.  You start honoring and valuing who you are deep down inside.  Self love and self trust grow and expand with each fear that you release.  You realize that each fear was designed to hold you captive.  You were caged by fear, so that you couldn’t discover your divine self.

“You reach a point where you feel yourself going through an awakening.  You look at what you used to do and who you used to be.  It hurts because you realize you believed in and promoted nonsense.  You grow; you evolve and you stop because you no longer operate at that frequency.  As a result, there’s certain people that you have to walk away from.  As a result, you start to realize just how messed up the world is.  You want to help; you want to heal; you want to make it a better world.  This is how you know you’re awakening a higher level of consciousness . . .  “ – Sylvester McNutt

When you start living from that authentic place deep inside of you, you will be truly seen.  In order to be who you are at the soul level, you have to let go of the stories you have been defined by your whole life.  It is like a puzzle where the pieces were jammed into place because they didn’t quite fit.  When you are living life from the authentic place at the soul level you begin, piece by piece, to rearrange all of those jammed pieces of the puzzle.

You realize who you are at your deepest level.  When that happens, all the pieces will fit together with no gaps.  That is when you will experience a whole new level of love, grace, peace and serenity in your life.

You will still have road blocks on your path.  You will still continue to grow through success and failures.  The difference is that you begin to recover faster.  The difference is that as you embrace what is true, you keep being curious about your life purpose.  You ask better questions that when you started.  The difference is measured by real progress on our life’s journey.

Never Be Defined By Your Past

Fear is like the Wizard of Oz, projecting itself onto the screen, frightening you with how powerful it is.  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 painful things can teach us lessons that we didn’t think we needed to know” – Unknown

Lessons show up in painful situations.  Sometimes you consciously choose to change, because you have taken the time to realize something isn’t working and why. Other times you 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 try to regain your balance. Other times you can trip over something that face plants you on the ground, and has you digging rocks off your skin. Either way there are still choices to make.

“One of the happiest moments in life is when you find the courage to let go of what you can’t change”  – Unknown

“No matter who tries to teach you lessons about life, you won’t understand it until you go through it on your own”  – Unknown

The classic opportunities for reinvention tend to come from two things. With a heartbreak such as; losing a job, ending a relationship, the death of a close friend or family member.

The classic “good but scary” opportunities for reinvention are you go away to college, you move to a new town with a new job, you get the really big promotion such as those COO, CEO, CFO types of promotions or the best of all, you decide to be an entrepreneur and your own boss.

In today’s world, your fill in the blank might be related to the changing world from Covid-19.  It might be you are living in a war zone.  It might be that you are reaching out to help with refugees in your town.  It might be a medical problem with yourself or a family member.  It might be trying to figure out what’s next in your career or family life.

“There are things in life we don’t want to happen, but have to accept; things we don’t want to know but have to learn; and people we can’t live without, but have to let go”  – Unknown

In today’s world lots of businesses are rethinking how they do business.  They are trying to see the gaps and create opportunities to bridge them. Bringing an idea to life is hard work. You can expect it to cost you more personally, financially, and maybe even reputational than you thought it would. There are sleepless nights. You become a master of second guessing your choice to make this move.

“Disney taught me to never stop 

believing in my dreams

Harry Potter taught me that love and friendship

dominates all kind of evil

Narnia taught me that we must all grown up 

& leave our childhood behind,

but must never forget it

Percy Jackson taught me that there’s

a hero in every one of us

Glee taught me that no matter how different we are,

there’s always that one thing we have in common”  – Unknown

But to be truly committed you need to “burn the boats”.  This expression is a “point of no return”, where you have destroyed all other choices, and you are left with no options but the intention you started with.  It comes from a famous incident when a Spanish Explorer landing in Mexico ordered their ships to be burned.  They either would conquer the country or be killed, because they had no way to return home.

So take away plan b, eliminate the lifeline.  Go all out for what you are passionate about. Follow your bliss. Look at what is working and not working. What you love to do and hate to do. The key is to get immersed in what you are passionate about and hire help for the rest.

“Each day I am thankful for nights that turned into mornings, friends that turned into family, dreams that turned into reality, and likes that turned into loves”  – Unknown

• Surround yourself with people who love to learn, share and build.
• Join or create a mastermind group with people who are putting their ideas into action.
• Seek out those in your community who solve problems and ask for suggestions.
• Create that special group of people who will be your cheerleaders, helping you to remain positive and take the risks that need to be taken, instead of holding yourself back.
  

And remember the three most important words in your fear busting vocabulary: Improvise, Adapt, Overcome.

It All Begins With A Dream, A Story. Stay True To The Dreamers Story.

“Promise to stay wild with me.  We’ll seek and return and stay and find beauty and the extraordinary in all the spaces we can claim.  We’ll know how to live.  How to breathe magic into the mundane”  – Victoria Erickson

I think that turning your dreams into realities is all about staying wild.  To stay adventurous and be curious.  To breathe magic into the mundane.  To touch the stars, and fly with dragonflies.  It is about dancing with fairies and talking to the moon.  It is about following Alice into the mirror or down the rabbit hole.  It is about returning to Oz for more adventures.  The imagination is critical to planting the seeds of your future.  Don’t listen to those who purvey logic and say it can’t be done.  Listen the to whisper of your heart as it leads you to create what others can’t even imagine.  Whimsy is the “new black”.

“Refuse to be that person that, like so many others who is still driving down the same road years down the line, mournfully longing to go back in time to be given just one more chance to take the road they should have taken because they ignored all possible extraordinary signs.  It’ll never get easier to make the leap and this is your chance, so make the change.  Take the road now”  – Victoria Erickson

The things that you do and don’t do shape who you are.  They put detail into your mind, body, heart, and soul.  The stretchmark’s of childbirth.  The laughter wrinkles.  The broken hearts and mended souls.  You have learned how to be brave, how to smile through the tears.  You promise yourself and your loved ones that whatever tragedy is happening in your life this moment – everything will still be okay.

You have learned how to shift your sails through the tides of change.  How to ride the wild waves and make it back to shore.  How to stand in the wind and just keep swimming.  How to leap instead of crawl.  How to rise out of the ocean depths and fly across the water.  To ride the storm like a wild horse and how to lead it back into calm waters.  You are not a settler.  You didn’t settle to drive down the straight and narrow roads, that ones that don’t lead to adventures.   You chose the road to high adventures.

“I have the deepest affection for intellectual conversations. The ability to just sit and talk.  About love, about life, about anything, about everything.  To sit under the moon with all the time in the world, the full-speed train that is our lives slowing to a crawl.  Bound by no obligations, barred by no human limitations.  To speak without regret of fear of consequence.  Talk for hours and about what’s really important in life”  – Unknown

I love my tribe of special girlfriends.  We sit around the fire and drink wine and talk.  We talk about our lives and solve not only all of our problems.  We move on to solving all of the worlds problems.  My mom would always ask me what we talked about, and I would say that we just created a better world for all of us.

There is a movie with Sam Waterston, John Heard and Liv Ullmann called “Mindwalk” – it is about a lawyer, a politician and a scientist who meet up at Mont St. Michel.  They get caught up is the magic of having one of those kinds of conversations.  They explore everything as they walk around the castle.  I loved the film because you see how exhilarating a conversation can be when you aren’t arguing with each other but instead opening up each others minds to explore new ideas and concepts.

“The idea is to live your life in a way that makes you feel lit up.  Alive.  Fully fledged.  Beautiful.  Know and find what nourishes you inside out, bones to skin and then build your world from that alone.  All else is not part of your revolution.  Or your ultimate evolution”  – Victoria Erickson

Our dreams are meant to be moments of connection.  Connecting ideas, concepts and changing the reality of your life.  They are expansive.  They flash across time and space, to a point in the future and then ricochet back to you with what the next step is to make them a reality.  The dreams are fluid and watery as they flow and adapt to new information.  They are always moving forward, never retracting.  They are malleable, luminous, free like the clouds in the sky to form new patterns and shapes.  Follow your passion. Listen to your heart.  Don’t be afraid of changing and adapting.

“There’s a turning point.  It arrives when we find ourselves quietly hovering inside the realization that the choice is between two pains:  the pain of the jump or the pain of regret”  – Victoria Erickson

Leaping is such a wonderful visual word.  Like you have a “pride of lions”, the word for leopards as a group is a “leap of leopards”.  When a leopard kills an antelope it has to take his kill high up into the trees. If he doesn’t other animals will take his kill away from him.  The adult male leopard weighs 80-198 lbs, and the female 63-132 lbs.  An antelope outweighs the leopard with the largest weighing more than 1,000 lbs.  So if the leopard doesn’t balance his leap perfectly, it risks being crushed by its own kill.  If they don’t make the leap high into the tree branches, it risks losing its dinner and starvation.  Every time I see the word leap, I think of the leopard.

“Remember that you are more than skin and bones.  You are one thousand stories of before.  One thousand stories of potential.  One thousand stories you’ve yet to see and know and feel and breathe.  There’s more to come.  And it’s something beautiful”   -Victoria Erickson

If you don’t leap, you won’t be able to continue bringing your dreams into reality.  If you do leap, you will be risking failure.  Experience has shown that you will need to leap again.  To rise up and continue your journey. Since there will be pain of failure, pain of regret, or pain of the leap itself, tip yourself over the edge.  Flip your fears into courage.  There are thousands of stories yet to be lived and told over the campfire.  There is so much more potential to be revealed.  You are still unraveling the parts of you that don’t belong and uncovering the true you that you buried so long ago.  So when given the chance to leap, take it.  Live a new story.  Share that story with others.  I can’t wait to hear your stories.  To hear your dreams of realities not yet created, as well as all of the transformations you already have unveiled.

“There will be certain people and places that’ll open your aliveness, flooding you with the same awe and sweet ache as a thousand daydreams revealed.  Hold these connections close, for one day you’ll know a clearer view of what they truly were from the beginning – still moments of perfection in an ever spinning world”  – Victoria Erickson

So as you sail about in the sky, reaching for the castle of your dreams, treasure the still moments of perfection that happen along the road.  Make sure you take time each day to dip your toes into the pools of imperfections.  Those imperfections that you not only live with, but have come to appreciate as part of your souls journey.

See the daydreams unveil themselves.  Get a clear focused view of your current destination.  See the moment of clarity in your life purpose(s).  Take out your compass and adjust your course as needed.  Stay in the wild spaces.  Keep leaping.  Remember to live your life not in the past, or in the future, but in this moment.  Feel the love, the joy, the happiness.  Most of all, live with open heartedness.  See the beauty of your life in its thousands of forms.