All Things Are Possible

Never settle.  Fight for the life, the career, the dreams, the love that you deserve.

  – Mandy Hale

Women cry not just when they are sad.  They cry when the are angry, frustrated, and misunderstood.  They also cry when they are in joyous exultation, happy beyond bearing.  When a divine truth enters a woman’s life, it strips her bare.  These are tears that need to be honored.  It is time to say goodbye to something that no longer bears the resonance of truth for us.  It is time to say hello to a new truth.  Playing with the fire of truth, we burn away the parts that no longer belong and refine what remains.

I will not trade my authenticity for your approval.

  – Wild Woman Sisterhood

I went to see the Wonder Woman movie this past weekend.  I enjoyed it, as I watched her face her idealisms being shattered.  I watched her as she refined herself, her purpose in her life.  The decision she made to leave the island.  The decision she made to liberate the village.  The life changing decision that she made in facing up to Ares and his taunts.  Ares demonstrated in front of her that mankind wasn’t worth her sacrifices.  I loved the principle that was celebrated, that it really didn’t matter if the people were judged as being worthy of her sacrifice.  She wasn’t their judge about such things.  She was doing what she did for her own beliefs that she held sacred. 

Transformation is the journey you are on.  You are exploring the wisdom of your soul.  You are shedding old ways and beliefs that no longer fit who you are becoming.  Be brave, dear one.  You are becoming your authentic self.

  – Unknown

It reminded me of when you are walking down the street and you see homeless people panhandling.  Many would say, “they are not worthy of our hard earned money”.  That, “they will just use it for drugs or alcohol”.  That somehow, “they deserve the situation that they have landed themselves in”.  My hope is that this movie gets us to rethink about the automatic judgments we make.  The condemnations that we believe we are justified in holding.  That we open our hearts instead to look for a different way.  A better way to help those who have lost their way.  We can’t change their lives for them, they have to do that.  But we can give them a helping hand, a hand up, not just a hand out.  That we can help to empower them to see, that they are worth something still.  That they have a powerful story that can help save others.

 If you are not free to be who you are, you are not free . . .

  – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

There are days when the frustrations of running up against road blocks make you want to blow up the road, and disappear into the wilderness.  You can’t let those days make you run away.  There are too many people out there that are looking to you to show them the way to follow their dreams.  Hold on to sisters who are fellow dreamers and action takers.  When your flame is being blown out, they will shelter you from the wind.  They will help you to regroup.  They will be your saving grace to keep you from going dark.  Each time we get into a level of frustration that has us wanting to “tap out” of life, we need to reassess what we are doing.  If the actions we are taking are not getting us where we desire to go, then we need to reassess and regroup.  What else is possible?  How can we redefine what we are doing? 

It takes 4 weeks for you to notice a change.  It takes 8 weeks for your friends to notice.  It takes 12 weeks for the rest of the world to notice a change.  It takes 1 day to decide that you are enough.

  – Unknown

I wonder how many times our change actually took place, and we stopped working on it on week 3 because we couldn’t see it happening?  Maybe you have achieved something new, and then you threw away because you were still looking at yourself through the old filter.  You couldn’t see what you had actually accomplished, so you just went back to the same old you? 

Don’t wait until you’ve reached your goal to be proud of yourself.  Be proud of every step you take toward reaching your goal.

  – Unknown

 Imagine you have a potters wheel in front of you.  You are sculpting a bowl.  You look at it and it isn’t what you were trying to make.  Do you take the clay and throw it against the wall?  Do you blame the clay or the wheel for not producing your work of art the way you wanted it to be?  Or do you simply squish it back down and start over?  If our bowl is to be molded to what we want, maybe we just look for ways to do it differently.  What can we add, or take away?  Go faster or slower spinning the wheel?  More or less water?  Create definitions higher or lower?  We have millions of choices to get where we are trying to go.  We also have millions of chances and changes to make in getting us there. 

Transformation is often more about unlearning, then relearning.

  – Richard Rohr

I always think about babies for this.  They learn to roll over to change what they can see or touch.  Then they learn how to get their legs underneath them so that they can move them and learn to crawl.  Then they start using leverage against furniture to get them to stand up on their legs.  Then they start walking and from there they start running, climbing and jumping.  Each step fed into the next step.  They don’t crawl once they have learned to walk.  They let go or unlearn the crawling piece as they transform how they get around the room by walking, running, climbing and jumping. 

The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.

  –  Socrates

In this same way, each new thing we learn essentially replaces a previous truth.  At one time I was a roller, then a crawler, then I let those old truths be replaced with the next level of learning.  All of those old levels of learning were necessary to get me where I am today.  But they are not what is going to get me where I am going tomorrow.  When the new door of opportunity for learning and growth opens up, go through the door.  Don’t stay a roller or a crawler, stuck in a cramped space that no longer allows any room for new growth.  Don’t settle.  Shoot for the stars.  Any time we find ourselves stuck in a cramped space and not growing, we need to accept responsibility for being there.  In some way we are inhibiting our growth and transformation.  Then step through the door to growth and transformation.  Adjust your sails to catch the wind and fly across the waves.

Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask.  Everything you want also wants you.  But you have to take action to get it.

  – Jack Canfield

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Believe In Yourself And Be UnStoppable

“The moment you give up all thought of retreat or surrender, you become an unstoppable force” – Tommy Newberry

44 years ago, I gave birth to my oldest son.  At that time natural childbirth was just getting started.  I had decided that I wanted to have Joseph without any drugs.  My mom, a very headstrong woman, was of the opinion that I would never be able to do it.  I would be begging for drugs as soon as the labor started getting difficult.

While this goal started as a personal decision based on the belief that it would be better for the baby, it became a goal so strong that nothing would be allowed to stand in my way.  I was determined to show my mother that I could do this.  Her belief that I was too weak and wouldn’t be able to handle the pain, became my conviction to show her she was wrong.

The hospitals at that time didn’t approve of natural childbirth.  The nurses thought it shouldn’t be done that way.  I wanted to have my son and then go home.  They were adamant that I should stay 3 days.  Nursing your baby wasn’t encouraged.  They liked the babies to stay in the hospital nursery and I wanted him by my side.

It was a fight on all sides, but fortunately my doctor was an amazing man and supported me all the way.  He had been my childhood doctor and had seen me through scarlet fever when I was in Junior High School and removed a benign tumor when I was a teenager.  He figured if I fought my way through that, I could handle childbirth without drugs.

I have wondered whether my intuition had come into play with my decision, because as it turned out, not only did I have Joseph without any pain medication – it saved his life.  As he was coming down the birth canal he hit his head and basically passed out.  He stopped moving down the canal.

He was too far down to do a C-Section and so the doctor used several different types of forceps to bring him out the rest of the way.  When he finally emerged he was blue and wasn’t breathing.  The doctor gave him mouth to mouth and CPR and got his breathing going.  It all happened so fast that by the time my husband and I realized he was in trouble, he was breathing on his own.

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction”  – John F. Kennedy

After they had run all of the tests, the doctor updated us that he was fine.   He told us that it was his opinion that the only reason he was able to revive him was because I hadn’t taken any drugs.

My intention to have a drug free childbirth, spurred on by my passion to show my mom I could handle it, saved my sons life.  I refused to give in to the pain, and breathed my way through every single contraction.  If my mom hadn’t hurt me by saying I wasn’t capable of handling the pain, I might have given in to it and had the drugs.  She spurred me on, and that direction that took me over the finish line.

In daily life you are constantly changing, transforming and transitioning.  Some of them are so small that they occur without anyone noticing.

I always think of children and their growth spurts in height, for a change that happens without anyone noticing.  Because the growth happens so slowly, when you are with them all day, every day, you don’t see it.  But you do notice it with your friends or relatives children.  You may not see them for a month or two and you see them again, and they have grown a couple of inches.

You only notice your own children’s growth by the fact that they need new clothes because everything they own no longer fits them.

“She was fierce, she was strong, she wasn’t simple.  She was crazy and sometimes she barely slept.  She always had something to say.  She had flaws and that was ok.  And when she was down, she got right back up.  She was a beast in her own way, but one idea described her best.  She was unstoppable and she took anything she wanted with a smile” – R.M. Drake

Some changes, transformations and transitions happen with a moment.  A single moment can change your life forever.

When you are pregnant with your first child, you think you know what it means to be a parent.  You think you know how it will change your life.

When you hold that precious baby in your arms for the first time, it dawns on you that you were right about your life not being the same.  You also realize that had no idea, what this would really be like.  You look into that tiny face, and for the first time you really truly understand unconditional love.

You might have doubts about how you are going to be a good parent.  You will realize you have no idea what you’re doing, and that you are probably going to fail over and over again.  But you also know that nothing is going to stop you.

You will figure out how to survive on two hours of sleep.  How to give a wiggly baby a bath.  How to clip fingernails and toenails without pinching their soft skin too.  How to balance a child, a bag of groceries, and open/close doors all at the same time.  How to kiss boo boo’s and make them better.  How to potty train your son and teach him to keep that urine stream pointed in the right direction.  You will rock them when they’re sick, and wish you could be sick instead.

You will do this because you are strong, fierce, and flawed, you will go to war for and with your child, you will be unstoppable.

I used to have a bumper sticker that said, “I can handle anything, I have teenagers”.  Teenagers are messy souls.  They are chaos in motion.  They will rip your heart into pieces one minute, and the next minute cuddle you and say how much they love you.  Parents of teenagers know what defeat is.  Slamming doors, screaming I hate you.  Having to talk for hours until you break through the defenses to find out what is really wrong.

Failure is not defeat.  When one door won’t open, you learn to try another.  Failure is just a detour.  I learned from my children, they were my greatest teachers in showing me how I could be better, and do better.

I learned about communication with my children.  How to reach down into their hearts and draw them out.  I knew when they were misbehaving that something was going wrong in their lives.  I knew if I could just find the right words, they would tell me what was wrong.

I learned how to use analogies.  I learned to find ways to tell stories that would help them put into words, what was happening in their lives that they didn’t know how to talk about.  I learned to go down deep within the well of their hearts, to bring up what was asking to be seen and acknowledged.

Sometimes I failed.  Sometimes I didn’t pay close enough attention.  Sometimes I wondered how I ever thought I could be a mom.  But I didn’t give up.

I loved the first photo because she is running in the rain.  She didn’t listen to that voice that said, don’t run today, it is raining.  It is cold.  You should just stay in your nice warm bed.

In every area of your life, you can be unstoppable.  Every new day dawns with a ray of hope.  Hope of it being a good day.  Of being a day with a fresh start in creating positive change, transformation and transitions into your life.

• The hope of resiliency.
• The hope of being a positive example for someone else.
• To inspire them to accomplish their dreams.
• To lead by example.
• To be perfectly imperfect and be ok with that.
• It’s all about being better than you were yesterday.
• To live a courageous life.
• Being willing to say, “I can do better, let me try this again”.

“Whatever your difficulty, whatever your hardship, dance and make the song you sing your prayer.  Sing it courageously, and with each step strengthen yourself with the knowledge and wisdom of your elders.  So that whatever next happens, you can survive and not lose your rhythm”  – Red Haircrow

Throughout your life there will be things to let go of, and there are things you need to pick up.

• You need to let go of the self judgment.
• You need to pick up self confidence to break through fears.
• You need to let go of perfection, and pick up the belief that just because you fail, you must be a failure.
• You need to pick up your self esteem, and realize that you are more than enough for anything that life throws at you.
• You need to let go of heart break and pick up the ability to be in love with vulnerability.

To realize that being vulnerable allows you to experience life at a whole new level.  You can love without being needy.  You can be grateful for every experience, because it made you powerful beyond measure.

Keep looking for new ways to express your creativity.  Keep looking for passion and purpose in your life.  Keep growing into a master of life.  Don’t settle.  Be the unique person that you are, a beautiful soul expressing Gods love here on earth.  Nobody else has your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.  Be unstoppable.

Living Life Outside Of The Ordinary

• Does it seem sometimes like what directs your life is the bills you have to pay?
• The things that other people want you to do?
• Is your life a list of things “to do”, a checklist of obligations?

Are you being directed by the problems needing to be resolved, or by the passions of your dreams?

We must take the time to define our own path.  Too quickly we can find the world defining it for us – unknown

What if instead of grocery lists, errands to run, and budgets with bills to pay; you instead created a different list?  This list would encompass what your ideal life would look like.  I’m not talking about the fancy car, or mansion.  It isn’t the number of pairs of shoes in your closet.  It isn’t things at all.

If you created this list, you would start with where you would be living:

• A cabin in the woods over looking the Oregon coast?
• An adobe home in the high desert?
• A boathouse on the Columbia River?

Then you would look at what your day would consist of:

• What would be the ideal way to spend your days?
• Traveling on the road, or at the office?
• Is your office in a skyscraper or a home office?
• Is it in the United States, Europe, South America?
• How many hours a day would you work?
• What would you do with your time after work?

If you could list everything that was truly important to you – would you have the courage to start building your life around that dream?

What do you tell everyone that you want to do?  Now what actions are you taking in your life to make that happen?

Because the disconnection between what you say you want and what you do about it, speaks to the fact of how much you “really” want it.  It is an idea you are comfortable with.  But if it isn’t happening, then it isn’t an idea that you have confidence in bringing into reality.  There is something missing in the connection.

It could be an old dream that you have grown out of, but you don’t want to give it up because you don’t really know what you want instead.  The passion which would lead to action is just not there.

It could be that it wasn’t really ever your dream. but someone else’s. Maybe your parents unfilled dream; maybe something you just sort of accepted as being yours because your best friend or partner thought it was something you could do together.  While it became the dream you talked about, it was never the dream that was as necessary to your life as taking the next breath.

“You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need” – Jerry Giles

How do you know when you have a real dream that is really a soul desire?  A heart commitment?

It feeds your soul.  You can’t take a breath without thinking about it in some way.  Even when you are on overwhelm you can’t go to bed until you have done something to take another step on that path of making the dream a reality.  You are constantly asking yourself what in your life needs to change to help you be the person who can accomplish that dream.

Adventures are when you go someplace new.  When you try something for the first time.  They can happen in your own backyard, or a 1,000 miles away.  It is in the doing of something new that we make discoveries about ourselves.

“I don’t believe I luck.  Luck = leaving things to chance and the outside world.  I believe in being harbingers of our fate, determining our own path, taking action and creating our own destiny in life.  This is your life and it is your to create.  Don’t ever let others do it for you.”  – Celestine Chua

Figuring out something for the first time usually has some trial and error involved.  Some frustration, when you swear you are following directions and it isn’t looking like the instruction sheet says it should.  It is when you discover that the manufacturer drilled the holes in the wrong spot, or didn’t provide enough screws or you are missing vital parts.

• It takes Courage.
• Persistence to continue.
• Patience to stop, relax, and begin again.
• Remember there are no limits to what you can do and be.
• Each time it seems you hit a limit, it is just a resting place.
• Embrace the uncertainty and a new door will open before you.
• Embrace Change.
• Embrace Life.

In Life’s Dance, Do You Partner With What You Want Or What You Fear?

“If you are resisting something, you are feeding it. Any energy you fight, you are feeding.  If you are pushing something away, you are inviting it to stay”  – Michael Singer

Every day in life, you will experience fear in some way.  Some days it feels like the wolf is at the door.  As he claws at the door you can see it starting to splinter apart.  He is fiercely growling, as he is threatening your life.  Your heart is pounding so loudly it almost drowns out the wolf’s noises.

Other times, you can hear the wolf in the distance, howling and teasing you that he is coming.  You can hear his claws as he paces around and around the house.  But he doesn’t try to come in.  He is content to pace outside and torment you that he might try to come in.

Some of these fears are false events, that you think might be coming true in your life.  You worry at them, like the dog at a bone.  You think about them constantly circling round them over and over.  You feel the non-ending stress with headaches and stomach aches.  You can’t sleep without nightmares.

Other fears are things that have happened to you, that you are afraid will happen again.  Traumatic events that replay in your mind.  Some of these events will take professional counseling to get over, others are something that you need to work through and release.

I have a process that I use when the event has too much pain contained within it.  I review the trauma and deal with releasing as much as I can.  Then I mentally pack the rest of it into a box and put it on a shelf.  I label the box with a date to reopen it.

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

On that date, I again work with the trauma and release another portion of it.  Then I repack it into a smaller box, labeled with a new date.  I continue the process until the last of the trauma has been released.

I know that I have reached that stage for two reasons.  (1) I can touch the trauma, and there is no longer a triggered reaction to it. Like touching a tooth ache, I touch it and it no longer causes pain.  (2) There is nothing left to put into a smaller box.  I can then give thanks that I had the strength, will, and courage to come through this trauma with the grace of God.

Part of releasing the pain, is finding one small thing that was a positive life lesson.  I look at it through a strangers eye.  I look for something that I would say as a stranger, to someone who had experienced that trauma.

I stop being the victim.  I stop being in the trauma.  I step outside the drama.

I look for how it strengthened the person’s character.  How they would be able to show more compassion and empathy for others now that they understand this experience.  I keep looking for some nugget of gold.

When I find it, I can release that much pain from the box.  Eventually the box is empty of pain, and instead of pain, I now have a room filled with priceless experiences.

“Opportunities to find deep powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging”  – Joseph Campbell

Some of your fears are not worrying about something bad happening to you.  Some of your fears are about how you are judging yourself.

• You fear being wrong.
• You fear making mistakes.
• You fear being left all alone.
• You fear being abandoned.
• You fear disappointing those you love the most by not being able to live up to their expectations.
• You fear not being able to be what they are trying to make you be.  And you are right.  If you try to be something that you aren’t, eventually you are going to fail.

“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine”  – Bruce Lee

So what do you do with your world of fears?

• Don’t resist them.  That just makes them bigger and harder to overcome.  Instead get busy with looking inside your own heart and mind.
• Dig in the cave where the fear has rooted itself.  Dig it up.
• Get curious about what event planted it in that spot.
• Get nosy about what other interpretation could be possible as you examine the roots of the fear.
• Start digging up each individual root of the fear plant, making sure that you don’t leave any roots behind.
• Take it out of the dark cave into the bright sunlight.
• Taking action and getting curious about the fear, allows you to let go of the pain it was causing.
• Taking action you can release the doubts that the fear created and replace those doubts with courage and confidence.

By transplanting this fear out in the warm sunshine, you have faced the worst that the fear has to offer.  You came out of the battle victorious.

Not because you killed the fear, but because you transformed it into something even more powerful.  You transformed it into the treasures of dreams fulfilled.  Of achievements accomplished.  Of courage maintained.  Of emotions generated such as gratitude and happiness. Of having the best adventures, the best stories to share with others.  The best gift of all, is to truly know yourself.

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear”  – Jack Canfield

Life’s Adventures Unlock The Mystery of Who You Are, Start Now

“If happiness is the goal, and it should be, then adventures should be a priority” – Richard Branson

Why should adventures be a priority?  Because it is the best way to learn about yourself and the world.  You learn about what you are afraid of, what challenges you.  What deep seated beliefs you have that you might not be aware of.  It is in fact the best way to experience “LIFE”.  You go somewhere you have never been.

It could be a walk in the woods around where you live.  A hike in the mountains.  A walk along the sea shore, listening to the sea birds call out over the sounds of the waves crashing against the sandy beach.  It could be your first time in an airplane or a cruise ship.  Sitting in a train, you watch the majesty of nature roll by as you cross the rocky mountains, and someplace deep inside you feel the shift.

Somewhere along the line, something will happen out of the ordinary.  You will start out on a certain kind of journey, and along the way the mystery of why you chose that path will reveal itself to you.

“As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was going to happen”  – Winnie The Pooh

What is so interesting about travel and adventure is the attitude you bring to it.  You can magnify every discomfort into an ordeal, or you can get curious about what is happening around you.  You can experience it all as an adventure.  You get out of the ruts in your life.  Adventures are the best way to let some stories happen to you.  Discover new trails you didn’t know existed.  Adventures answer questions you didn’t know you had, because with adventures you gain first hand knowledge and experience.

“The books we read answer questions we didn’t even know existed”  – Axel Marazzi

There might be switch backs along the trail and you decide to walk off the trail, and cut through straight up the mountainside.  You come to forks in the trail with no signs, so you have to choose to go this way or that way.  Sometimes the trees are so thick you can’t see the sun.

• It is in the getting lost, that you become aware of what is important.  What are you willing to do to get it?
• It is in the replacing of fear with curiosity that you truly see what your options are.
• It is in seeing the endless stream of possibilities are always there for you to see, but you get so single mindedly focused that you miss every door of opportunity.

“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams”  – Oprah

Are you a planner?  I like to get into the details and have things laid out.  It took a lot of practice for me to start leaving space in my plans to just be adventurous.  My husband loves to just get in the car and take a drive.  No real destination, just drive down a road we have never taken, with no idea where it would take us.  Everyone needs someone like my husband, who grabs your arm and says lets go have an adventure.

“Don’t die without embracing the daring adventure your live was meant to be”  – Steve Pavlina

Not planning gives me anxiety.  It feels unstable.  But slowly through years of practice, I allow for spontaneity in my life.  Is it easy for you to follow maps to the edges, and then step off the edge?  You know that the world isn’t flat.  You know there are no monsters of the deep to drag your boat down to the bottom of the ocean.

• Do you go to sleep with stars that you don’t recognize?
• How often do you order something you have never eaten before?
• Do you have the conviction, that whatever you are looking for in life, it is out there waiting for you to find it?

There is no end to what you can discover about yourself when you adventure out with your eyes wide open.  Let the journey unfold itself before you.

“We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that death will tremble to take us”  – Charles Bukowski

A lifetime of adventures

One of my favorite movies is with Diane Lane, in “Under The Tuscan Sun”.  After a bad a breakup, she is gifted with a vacation in Italy by her best friend.  While on the tour bus, they pass by this house and all of a sudden she makes them stop and let her off.  And that is when her adventure really begins.  She ends up buying the house, restoring it, and meets all of these new people.  She has this idea of what she wants in her life to make her happy – her dream life.  At the end of the movie she has everything she wanted, but it all came to her in a totally different way than she planned.

When you try to make life conform to a plan, you miss the mystery and magic of what it is really supposed to be.  The best gift you can give yourself is a lifetime of adventures.

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart” – Confucius

There is a wonderful book by Jack Canfield called “The Golden Motorcycle Club” and in it he writes that we travel in soul groups.  I can just see the ad for my soul group.

“Limitless soul seeking like minded limitless souls, to journey down to earth for a great adventure.  You will be leaving a good life here, to go for a greater experience of life there.  For in going out into the world of the physical body, you will succeed in discovering that you are far more than you ever dreamed of.  You will find that stories are not just something that you can read about.  Stories are what happens to you and for you when you live a life of adventure.  You will discover if you are, “the girl made up of adventure and wine and all things fine”, or “the girl made up of adventure, fine beer, brains and no fear”.

And so . . . the ADVENTURE BEGINS.  Let’s go do something remarkable.

Say Yes, Choose To Make A Difference, The Butterfly Effect

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.

  – R. Buckminster Fuller

I think that most of us have heard the concept of the butterfly effect.  That the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in one part of the world, can cause a typhoon in another part of the world.  The concept of how making a single change in your life, effects the future of people all over the world.  Every time we make a change in our lives, it shifts who we are.  We in effect destroy the old personality, in creating a new personality.  The caterpillar creates a change by forming the chrysalis around its body.  Then the old body is completely destroyed.  A completely new body is created.  This kind of change is not temporary.  There is no going back to who you were.  Even small changes create revolutionary impacts in a persons life.  Science recognizes this as “The Law of Sensitive Dependence Upon Initial Conditions”, I like “The Butterfly Effect” much better.  LOL.

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet become something beautiful.

 – unknown

I had this experience of seeing how a very simple comment, completely changed my own life.  I was at a seminar and the speaker had asked a question of the audience.  I had raised my hand.  He looked at me.  His face had that expression you get when you think you know someone, but you aren’t sure who they are.  He asked me if I had attended any of his other events, and I said yes.  This was actually my third weekend course with his group. 

One day, whether you are 14, 28 or 65, you will stumble upon someone who will start a fire in you that cannot die.

  – Beau Taplin

The next words out of his mouth shifted my whole life into a new space of awareness.  He dramatically raised his arm and made the motion of removing a cape.  He said “You are one of those people.  I am removing your cloak of invisibility.”  With those couple of sentences, I was forever changed.  I could feel a heavy weight had been lifted off of me.  It was like a darkness was removed.  I felt like I was standing in the spot light.  I felt every person in the room see me for the first time. 

Each small act of kindness, reverberates across great distances and spans of time – affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo.

  – Dean Koontz

I had been one of those people who could disappear into a crowd.  Now I can’t do it.  It is no longer natural.  It now feels uncomfortable.  I thank Jesse Koran for listening to that intuitive voice inside of himself, and saying what I needed to hear.  It was definitely time for me to transform.  My purpose in this world was calling to me.  This was just the first of many transformations my life purpose would require of me.

A mountain is composed of tiny grains of earth.  The ocean is made up of tiny drops of water.  Even so, life is but an endless series of little details, actions, speeches, and thoughts.  And the consequences whether good or bad of even the least of them is far reaching.

  – Swani Sivananda

What Jesse said was like a tiny grain of sand, a drop of water in the ocean, but that single action led to the creating of LemonadeMakers.  It lead to creating this blog.  It lead to my first book being written, and this summer it will be published.  It has led to a personal freedom in my life, because I finally said yes to me. I finally acknowledged that maybe I did have a gift with writing.  Now I wondered if maybe you would want to hear what I have learned through all of the lessons in my life.  That maybe, just maybe, you would be encouraged to make a shift and change in your own life.  I woke up, and I discovered that part of my own purpose in life, would be to help others wake up.

My writing had been calling out to me since I was a child.  But I was afraid to listen.  Now slowly that wall I had built between my life purpose and the life I was living, began to crumble.  With each new curious thought, I was able to remove some of that wall.  Curiosity is a huge wall demolisher.  Because it circumvents fears from stopping you.  It leads you to joyously take a risk and see what happens.  It is a prime movement of the transformation process.

By your hand millions – BILLIONS – of lives will be altered, caught up in a chain of events begun by you this day.

  – Andy Andrews

The reason why the butterfly effect is so interesting, is that I shift and transform a tiny grain of sand.  You in turn see something as small as a single sentence in this post, that causes you to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Your transformation, in turn inspires another to shift and change one tiny grain of sand.  Soon we have a whole mountain towering 5,000 feet in the air.  And it was built, one tiny grain of sand at a time.  One personal transformation of a small thing in your life, in the next persons life, and so on.  Until 5,000,000,000 grains of sand build a mountain.

Each of us is like that butterfly, The Butterfly Effect.  And each tiny move toward a more positive mindset can send ripples of positivity through out organizations, our families, and our communities.

  – Shawn Achor

At some point in our life, we start looking for our life purpose.  In looking at all of the butterfly’s around her in this photo, she finds the one that is perfect for her.  She finds her purpose in life.  While her yellow butterfly looks like many others, it is unique in its coloring.  It fits her perfectly.  She recognizes it as being hers and hers alone.  The question then becomes, what does she do with it?  Because taking up this butterfly will forever change her world.  She will grow and transform into something different and new.  She has the ability to change the world with her decision.  And the interesting thing is, that she will in fact change the world either by taking that butterfly, that purpose up or leaving it behind. 

Don’t quit before the miracle happens.

 – unknown

Every action and every non-action matters.  Every choice you make or don’t make matters.  Will you fully live your life, or just continue to exist?  Your time as a caterpillar has ended.  Will you take up your life purpose, your wings?  If you have said yes in the past, is it time to trade in the smaller wings for a large pair?  To expand your comfort zone?  To acknowledge and accept your bigger purpose in this world?

Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight.  Each grows out of the other, and we need them all.

  – Arthur C. Clarke

You might find something within this post that strikes you in a new way.  Nothing has been said here, that hasn’t been said elsewhere.  But as we grow into our life purpose, we see things differently because we are different.  So sometimes a sentence brings a new insight that we didn’t get before.  This information may or may not provide some new knowledge or understanding.  Knowledge applied becomes wisdom, so maybe something in this post served as a reminder to make a transformation.  It becomes wisdom when it transforms us in some small way.  That wisdom then provides foresight to the path that we are now walking down.  It provides a small grain of sand, to put onto our mountain top of transformation that we are building.  It tells us whether to take the right hand or the left hand of the path up ahead.

The very beating of your heart matters.  Every choice you make or choose not to make matters.  Your actions impact the world.  Choose them wisely.  Expand your comfort zone.  Seek out every opportunity to say yes to your life purpose.  Your actions will shape how your future unfolds.  Your story has been so far only one of many possibilities.  New choices, new actions, expansion, transformation – all sit in front of you at this moment.  Say yes to happiness, when your life purpose lands on your hand say yes to whatever will lead to expansion and growth.

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

  – Charles Dickens

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Your Soul Is Your Greatest Teacher

 

“You have to grow from the inside out.  None can teach you; none can make you spiritual.  There is no other teacher but your own soul”  – Swami Vivekananda

Your soul comes with your purpose already planted within it.  Your gifts are inside, waiting to be discovered.  The divine will is waiting to be expressed through your life.

Unfortunately, you forget what you already knew as a small child.  You get lost.  This is where the divine teachings can assist you.

The universal laws point you in the right direction.  They lead you to re-discover what you have forgotten.

One of the Laws of the Universe.  But what does it really mean when you look at it through the lens of your life?

I love the vibrant health of this tree in our featured quote. It is not only fully supporting itself, it is also providing for the area around it. Everything is vibrant, growing and healthy.

You have the light of the truth being reflected in the lamps to light the darkness down in the root system.  They shine at night to show the way as you go seeking the truth among your deep roots. You have the butterfly of transformation.

You have the fruit of both the foliage around it and the tree itself. This fruit attracts you as you go seeking food for your soul. It is so beautiful, and it invites you to come and rest.

I was listening to a CD by Guy Finley and he talked about the importance of balance in how we show up in the world, comparing it to a tree. Picture the tree having a root system as you see above. This root system is as deep underground, as the trunk and branches of the tree that extend high above the ground. It is about balance of the structure of the tree. The balance of the trees roots below support the outward growth above.

He stated that if a tree that didn’t have strong deep roots (roots deep within), it would be in danger of toppling over. This was because the growth above ground wasn’t being fully supported. In turn, if all you did was work on the root system, then you would have stunted growth above, no fruits. There has to be a balance of inner and outer work, all happening at the same time.

We see this in the Ying/Yang symbols.  In giving, you are going up the outward growth of the tree and in receiving you are going down into the root system.  In breathing in, you are going to the root system, and in breathing out you are going up the growth of the tree.

“The constant in/out, give/receive plays out in so many systems in our lives”

I thought about this in my own life, and watching the lives of others that I see out in the world. We have all seen a number of people who achieved something great in their lives, who later implode through drugs, drinking or sexual escapades. Think of the Hollywood stars that have overdosed, the politicians and scandals that they have had. Even religious leaders have their fair share when they have built an empire that came crashing down on them.

These are all examples of a root system that couldn’t support the upward growth.

So what is the root system in our analogy?

It is the inner work that you  do on yourself. The roots remind you of where you have been, and who you are today. It takes work to get to know your shadows. To uncovering what I call the popsicle stories. The stories you created as a child, to explain something that you couldn’t understand at the time. It is the judgments, traumas and dramas you grew up with. It takes deep inner work to discover what they are, and how they play out in the patterns of your life.  You must go back and claim your past.  It is what helps you to understand your present.

“It is in the connecting the past to the present, that sets up what you can completely shift and change for a better future”

It is through the developing of your relationship with the divine, that you are able to align your souls purpose in being here now. It is about asking the right questions to yourself that you discover “your way home” to your true self and your purpose in being here.

It is exploring and questioning every truth you have acquired throughout your life.  Some of those earliest truths contradict to some of your latest truths.  Some of those older “truths” or stories need to be released.  They no longer serve or support your inward and outward growth.

You need to discover that, as in the Wizard of Oz, you already have what you are looking for outside of you.  It lives deep inside of you in the root system. You already know “the way to home”.

Home is the place of balance in this analogy. The bedrock of the foundation cornerstone. The place where the outward growth of “who you are in this world” is equal to, and growing in proportion to the inner growth of the root system of your tree.  It is the place of awakening.

You have filters in your mind, which serve as a protection.  These filters both serve you and sometimes hurt you.  This is because you miss seeing things that have always been there.

Have you ever driven down a road that you use all the time and see a store front for the first time?  Earlier this year a large commercial building was totally removed so they could build a new structure.  I drive by it 4 times a day, going back and forth to my office from home (I go home for lunch).  I didn’t notice the building was being torn down until they had completely removed all trace of it.

This is because my filter removed it from my field of vision.  This has happened to you too.  The more conscious and awake you become the more you can learn to remove the filters so that you can see those open doors of opportunity.

Several years ago, after the murder of my nephew and the collapse of my sisters nonprofit that she had created afterwards, I discovered my souls purpose with LemonadeMakers.

LemonadeMakers after several years of inner growth preparation it is starting to grow above the ground. The trunk and branches have been growing, and we are about to have a whole lot of pieces of what I have been working on finally come together.

Supporting LemonadeMakers has changed me in ways that I can’t even believe myself. I have grown and changed so much personally. I have seen just how important it is to invest in yourself, and have a personal coach. The time, effort, and money spent means that I have taken the zip line through the jungle, instead of traveling on foot and breaking the trail.

Without coaching I know that I would have probably given up. The hero’s journey with this business has suffered setbacks with our website when I spent a lot of money and the service provider went out of business.  Then with the financial freefall of 2007-2012 recovery when I suffered a large loss of income.  With the support of good friends, the support of great coaches, and my own blood, sweat and tears, whatever roadblock that appears, I manage to keep going and keep growing.

From the place of my own experience in transformational growth, I encourage you to seek out personal coaching in some way. It is hard to see what is happening deep within the root system below you, or high up at the tips of your branches. A good coach, friend or mentor is a mirror reflecting back to you what you can’t see. We all need that friend that removes the toilet paper trailing behind you when you walk out of the bathroom, or smooths out the wild hair in the back of your head.

Just remember that every second is a fresh start to begin nurturing the roots and the branches of your tree. Every day is what you chose to make of it, how you are living your dream out in the world. When you have unrestricted flow between the roots and branches of your tree, you will see the greatest harmony flow into your life.  You will think of something, and make the connection, and produce the result almost without effort.

Ask

Believe

Receive

Contact LemonadeMakers if you want to see if having a personal coach is your next step.

Your Future Lies In The Beauty Of Your Dreams

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

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

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

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

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

It isn’t about trying harder,

it is about getting smarter.

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

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

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

The story of the Starfish –

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

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

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

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

So, what is the key to transforming this fear?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Take The Time To Listen To The Souls Dreams

Sometimes you need to take a break from everyone and spend time alone, to experience, appreciate, and love yourself – Robert Tew

I have a confession to make.  Years ago, when all four of my children were little, I used to hide in the bathroom.  Sometimes the mommy, mommy, was just too much.  I didn’t want to referee who had what toy, who pushed who, or be the mean mom making them clean up their room.

I was tired out from working all day, coming home and fixing dinner, making sure their homework was done, that they all had their baths, and had clean clothes for the next day at school.  I just needed five minutes alone.

If your kids are like mine were, you didn’t get the five minutes alone until they were in bed, and after the 15th excuse to get out of bed, they had finally fallen asleep.

By then of course, you are too tired to even think, and you are falling asleep on the couch.  Just a few minutes of peace.

My husband was a wonderful man who in the summer would take the kids on overnight camping trips.  For one whole weekend, I would stay at home alone.  I slept in.  I read a book.  I would wallow in alone time and recharge.  It was a mini mommy vacation.  When they came home Sunday night all excited about fishing, I was a whole new mom, ready to listen to every story and adventure.

If you really love someone, there’s no such thing as not having enough time for them – unknown

For some reason now that the kids are all grown and out on their own, I have filled my life up with so many things to do.  It took a while to notice that I have let the habit of alone time disappear.  I am following my own advice and putting this time down on the calendar.

It is really important to carve out the space to be able to soul search.  To recover energetically. To be able to do some deep thinking, following the rabbit down the rabbit hole.  To just be without any agenda or schedule or purpose.  It is a part of having a healthy relationship with yourself.  It is a part of loving yourself and making time for just you.

• So, when you carve out some alone time, what do you do with it?
• How much time each month do you carve out to play?
• Try something new that you have never done before?
• If you were to go exploring in your neighborhood or your town, what would you do?
• When was the last time that you sat down and created something just for fun?
• Painting, drawing, sculpting, gardening, singing, dancing, playing an instrument, writing a story or a poem, sewing – whatever direction your creative juices take you.

Alone time is when I distance myself from the voices of the world so I can hear my own – Oprah

I love to garden, to crochet, and I have always wanted to play the piano.  I want to go on a hot air balloon ride.  I want to travel to Scotland and see where my dad’s family came from.  I want to explore medieval castles all over Europe.

I have been neglecting this part of my life because of not balancing myself between my day job, taking care of my husband and his health issues, being there for the grandchildren, and the amount of time it takes to promote and build LemonadeMakers.   The “I should be’s” overwhelm the “I want to’s“.

But what I know from life experience and lots of years of education, is that it is just as important to take the time to recharge my batteries.

So, like the sailor in the ship, you need to make course adjustments, to make sure that you don’t keep losing yourself in life’s often conflicting priorities.

Remember to take those moments, or those weekends to smell the roses.  You will come back reenergized and ready to take on whatever life is getting ready to throw in your direction.

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

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

Silence your critics.

Ignore your haters.

Delete your cynics.

 – Robin Sharma

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

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

 – African Proverb

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

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

 – Theodore Roosevelt

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

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

    ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

 

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

Why Do I Succeed?

I am willing to do the things you are not

I will fight against the odds

I will sacrifice

I am not shackled by fear, insecurity or doubt

I am motivated by accomplishment, not pride

If I fall – I will get up

If I am beaten – I will return

I will never stop getting better

I will  never give up – ever

That Is Why I Succeed

Unknown

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

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

How big is your purpose?

 

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Believe In Your Own Greatness

 

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

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

  – Seth Godin

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

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

 – Ghandi

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

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

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

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

  – Eric Johnson

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

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

  – Zig Ziglar

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

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

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

  – Rick Warren

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

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

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

  – Bryant McGill

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

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

  – Henry Ford

 

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Be Brave – Entertain The Uncomfortable And Shoot For The Stars

The Three C’s of Life:

Choices, Chances, Changes.

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

 – Zig Ziglar

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

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

 – Zero Dean

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

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

 – Unknown

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

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

 – Christopher Columbus

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

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

 – Steven Pressfield

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

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

 – John Maxwell

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

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

 – Les Brown

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