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.

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.

Transformation Is A Coin, One Side Painful, The Other Side Beautiful. Just Flip The Coin Until You Get To The Beautiful

“Life is like a roller coaster.  You can either scream every time there is a bump or you can throw your hands up and enjoy the ride” – Unknown

A roller coaster is an interesting ride.  I grew up in Santa Cruz which is home to one of the oldest wooden roller coasters in the United States.  I went on it all of the time.  It is a ride that jerks you around, makes your stomach do flip flops.  Then there is the thrill of adrenaline coursing through your veins when you have both hands up in the air, and can you feel yourself lift off your seat, thighs riding against the bar across your lap.

It can make you frightened, scared, sick, excited and thrilled all in the same moment.  True change and transformation do the same thing.

“And suddenly you know…  It’s time to start something new and trust in the magic of beginnings” – Unknown

There are differences between change and transformation, there is a process to change.  You determine that you have something that you want to remove from your life, and something you want to introduce to your life.  So, you make a change.

I use losing weight as an example because it is something that is common to wrestle with.  A diet is something that you can change to lose weight.  You restrict yourself in your food intake and you might also introduce more exercise.   The problem with this way of doing things is that for 90% of us, it is a temporary change.

For a short while you run every day and eliminate carbs as an example.  You could lose 10, 20, 30 lbs. – but at some point, the willpower that you are exerting for this change dies out and you return to your normal habits.

Transformation isn’t about adding temporary measures to achieve a goal.  It is all about changing the lifestyle. It starts in the chaos.

For myself as an example, there is a reason why I gained weight, and now it needs to be released.  If the pain of wanting to release it doesn’t outweigh the pain of why I gained the weight, then anything I do won’t last.  I know this to be true, because I have been on this roller coaster of losing weight only to regain it all back.

You have to unravel the untruths in your body that the weight was formed from.  You created your own set of demons that put on every pound.  You have to uproot the entire plant and root system, or like a weed it just comes back.  Letting go of the demons you created is an acknowledgement that the “truth” they promised to be for you was a lie.

“One of the most courageous decisions you’ll ever make is to finally let go of what is hurting your heart and soul” – Brigitte Nicole

I have always loved the saying that life is a riddle, wrapped up in a mystery. inside an enigma.  It came from a radio broadcast and is attributed to Winston Churchill.  That is what it is like when you run up against the fear of change.

Somewhere inside of you is the riddle of what has triggered the fear.  Inside the fear is a mystery or story about the fear. Inside the story is the enigma of something subconscious that you can’t remember or recognize.

It is what makes the change temporary and why sometimes such extreme chaos is triggered in order for the transformation to happen.

In my own case with weight, I can feel something different this time.  It’s been three months of change for me so far.  I have released about 25 lbs.  The chaos that has triggered the change is health related.  I can feel a difference in the motivation this time.  It doesn’t feel like short-term thinking for the first time.  Time will of course tell me in the end if this is true transformation.

Whatever the transformation is, it is something that impacts all areas of your life.  It is so drastic a change that you can’t go back to what you were.

For Cat Stevens his transformation was around his spirituality.  He changed his name, he stopped singing and gave up a successful music career, he changed his religion. – and that changed everything.  He had a brush with death and almost drowned in the Pacific Ocean.  He promised God he would work for him, if he could make it back to shore.  Then a wave came that carried him back to shore.

It would be 25 years before he performed publicly again.  It wasn’t a short-term change using willpower. It was a lifestyle transformation.

“Life is filled with so many exciting twists and turns.  Hop off the straight and narrow whenever you can and take the winding paths.  Experience the exhilaration of the view from the edge. Because the moments spent there, that take your breath away, are what make you feel truly alive” – Stacey Charter

• When the winds of change blow, what is your reaction?
• Do you build a wall to keep it out?
• Do you build a windmill to harness the energy to facilitate a true transformation?

All great transformation is preceded by chaos.  Chaos is what sends you on the journey.  For Cat Stevens it would appear that he built a wall to keep things out.

Later in life, he returned to the music world, although he hasn’t had the same success as when he left it.  He released a new album, and it appears that he has torn down the wall, to instead use the energy of the windmill.  He has become very involved with various charity organizations.

Like a roller coaster, his transformation took him to the edge of cutting himself off from the world, and now is taking him to the edge of incorporating his life back into the world, but with a focus of helping child refugees and his charitable foundation, “Small Kindness”.

“You have to stop thinking you’ll be stuck in your situation forever.  We feel like our heart will never heal or we’ll never get out of this impossible struggle.  Don’t confuse a season for a lifetime.  Even your trials have an expiration date.  You will grow, life will change, things will work out” – Brittney Moses

The difference when undergoing transformation,

• You are making the changes from an energetic space, not a willpower space.
• You are making them out of Love not fear.
• You are making them from a place of courage not fear.

Life or death choices are one thread, a single coin.  It is all about which side we are viewing them from.  Lack or abundance?  Love or fear?  Life or death?  Are you screaming at life or throwing your hands up in the air and enjoying it?

New Day, New Chapter

“Not everything has a happy ending, but that’s life.  Just pick up the pieces and move on to the next chapter”  – Unknown

Something tragic happened here.  A bridge was destroyed or a chasm opened up where there used to be solid ground.  Seems to be a great graphic for what the world looks like at the moment.

All kinds of stories and possibilities.  Sounds like some relationships doesn’t it? You meet someone, get to know them.  Start loving and trusting them.  Years may go by with you both the best of friends.  Maybe it is even a sibling or a parent.  Something breaks down in the relationship and everything ends.  It could be gradual or suddenly without warning.  The father cuts off the child because the child isn’t doing what the father wants.  The brother and sister get into an ugly fight, saying unspeakable things as only those who truly know us can.  Years go by without them speaking to each other.  Your best friend cheated with your spouse.

“The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it . . .  some stories just don’t have a happy ending”  – Jodi Picoult

Or this could be the job that you thought you were indispensable at.  You worked long hours – days, nights and weekends spent away from your family.  You poured your heart and soul and even your identity into the job and they fired you or laid you off, or the company shut its doors.  No warning, no idea it was going to happen.  You are devastated.  You feel you are a failure.  You feel like you were used up and then thrown out with the trash.

“There are moments which mark your life.  Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts – before this, and after this”  – Fallen

Or maybe something terrible happens.  Like my sister, your only child is murdered.  The loss of the child ends your marriage and you find yourself lost and alone.  Or maybe it is tragic news for your personal health.  So many possibilities of tragic things that can happen in your life, that leaves you lost, alone, afraid and thinking that your life is over.

“Anyone who tells you to get over it and stop living in the past clearly doesn’t understand the concept of time.  If you’re feeling it now – it’s the present”  – Ranata Suzuki

The thing that all these stories have in common, is that you need to grieve what the loss to you is.  You need to go through the stages of grief for the loss.  You need to work through and let go of the guilt, anger, lost love, loss or betrayal.  It seems that when these things come into your life you get into a fighting mode.  You fight to hold on to what is falling off the edge of the tracks.  Then you fight to let it go before it drags you down into the chasm.

“Grief never ends . . .   But it changes.  It’s a passage, not a place to stay.  Grief is not a sign of weakness, nor a lack of faith . . . It is the price of love” – Unknown

There always comes the day when you feel like you’re actually going to start to live again.  It starts gradually.  You find yourself smiling or laughing.  It might shock you at first.  But gradually the grief lessens, and the joys start coming back into your life.   You become less scared.   You are less terrified that you are so broken that you won’t be whole again.

You start grabbing onto scraps of courage.  You realize that there is a sacredness to tears.  They cleanse your soul.  They speak not only of the grief you are going through, but also of the love you had.  You know that you are turning a corner, when you can hold the grief in one hand and the love in the other.  You realize that you don’t have to pick one.  You realize that when you put your hands together, they are just opposite sides of the same coin.

“The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on.  When you’re faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking” – James Patterson

You realize that you are stumbling through a “dark night of the soul”.  It’s like a natural disaster has hit you.  It tore everything you have built off the foundations.  The wood, the windows, the roof, is in pieces, and they are lying around like someone smashed a popsicle fort.  Like Humpty Dumpty, you feel like you can’t be put back together again.  You realize when the pity party has broken up and all of the revelers have left you alone, is that this is also something wonderful.

Instead of being unhappy with your floor plan; instead of just repainting the same walls and ceilings trying to dress up something you were already unhappy with – you get to rebuild from the foundation up.  You get to build from rock bottom a new solid foundation with the floor plan of your dreams and the best paint colors you can dream up.  You get a “do over” and get to rebuild your life.  You decide, you choose to be the Queen of your own specially designed life.

“One day she finally grasped that unexpected things were always going to happen in life.  And with that, she realized the only control she had was how she chose to handle them.  so, she made the decision to survive using courage, humor, and grace.  She was the Queen of her own life and the choice was hers”  – Kathy Kennet

 A new pattern of thoughts

You are using the brain in your head, heart, and root chakra – You listen to you soul’s voice of intuition and seek fulfillment of your life purpose.  You realize that you don’t have to have it all figured out, in order to move forward towards your dreams – just the next step.

A new way of using the emotional vibrational scale 

Stay in positive emotions.  When the negative emotions come up, like a wave riding into the shore, you allow them to dissipate into the sand and be released.  You don’t hold on to them, rather like the foam left behind as the wave withdraws, the negative emotions simply fade away.

A new spiritual connection to the world 

You face yourself and fully accept who you are, a perfectly imperfect person.  A divine child of God.  With a divine commission to fulfill.

A new belief system 

It’s ok to be daring and different, not afraid to live out loud who you really are.  You are a person of integrity towards your life purpose and with imaginative vision you seek to walk your own path in love, trust, and grace.

“Your life will consist of a series of times when you must reinvent yourself.  We desperately cling to the idea that things should stay the same, but life and growth are about change.  Don’t mistake the end of a chapter for the end of the story.  Lean into the plot changes, and follow your character arc.  If you are in a dark part of your tale, know that this night will not last forever, but you must be brave enough to see it through.  This is not the end, oh no my friend.  Take courage, better things await you” – John Mark Green

What Shape Waits In The Seed Of You?

Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance.  This is the Law of Nature – Dr. Steve Maraboli

I’ve always thought that if I was a flower, I would want to be a dandelion.  I love how their seed heads seem to sparkle.  When my bright yellow flower matured into tiny seeds, I wanted a little girl to pick me and make wishes.  Then blow me all over the meadow, so that I could spread and grow into the whole meadow.  A whole meadow of new tiny wishes to be made.

Dandelions are considered to be weeds by many.  But they are edible plants, and dandelion tea is very good for the liver, although I guess that dandelion wine might be a better drink – lol.  It is a useful plant, not pretentious or hard to grow like some flowers.  It is found almost everywhere. It is even a social flower because their deep taproots bring up nutrients not only for themselves, but any nearby plants too.  If you plant them around your trees, they release a gas that actually helps fruit to ripen.

What I need is the dandelion in the spring.  The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction.  The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses.  That it can be good again – Suzanne Collins

When the seeds disperse, they parachute outwards, like they are enjoying even the end of their life to the maximum, with no reservations.  They have faith that their landing will continue their species.  This faith is borne out by the fact that they have been around since prehistoric times and are not a cultivated plant in most places.

Words are like seeds.  They have creative power.  What seeds are you planting?

• What choices are you making today, that will be harvested tomorrow, next week, next month, next year?
• Do you choose to make changes, so that you can excel?
• Do you choose to listen to your inner mean mind voice or the soft whisper of your soul?
• Do you choose to be useful, not using and manipulating others?
• Do you choose to live your life with courage, standing up for yourself and others?

Words grow larger when they are examined.  The words are like the opening of a flower, from the bud to the blossom.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to bloom – Anais Nin

Why are you afraid of opening from a bud to a bloom?  I think part of the reason is that you are afraid of being judged as not worthy.  Not a very pretty blossom.  Poor color.  Bent petals.  Not attracting the right kinds of bees, birds or insects to help pollinate others.  No scent, or even worse, you stink.

You might get attacked by Aphids and look all spotty.  A dog or cat might decide you are their new litter box.

Some child running by could step on you and smash you into paste.  Then you wouldn’t even have a chance to go to seed.  Your purpose would have all been for nothing.  You should have just remained in the dark earth and not even tried to shoot towards the sun.

Then there is the whole going to seed part.  It is frightening.  You must completely fall apart.  All of the beautiful petals of your youth fall to the ground.  Your leaves turn brown and brittle and fall off.  The wind takes your precious seeds and just blows them away.  You don’t even get a say where they land.  Some landings will be on hard ground and the birds will eat you up.  But some will land in moist soil and falling into darkness they will start the germination process all over again.  The circle of life begins anew.

The heart is like a garden.  It can grow compassion, or fear, resentment or love.  What seeds will you plant there? – Jack Kornfield

When you have a good healthy discussion, the words used are like a seasoning.  They bring flavor to the ideas.  They change the texture of the meanings when they are used in new and different ways.  They expand your heart and mind.  They fall into the cracks and grow something new and unforeseen.

Words can be hot and spicy, or cool and watery.  Mellow words sooth and soften us.  They have the saying, “those are fighting words”.  Our words can cause you to run the entire string of the emotional scale.

• What kind of words do you use?
• Are they growing compassion or hatred?
• Spreading fear or love?
• Dispersing anger or resentment
• Scattering conciliation?

Life brings challenges to all of us.  Many times, the worst thing that can happen, becomes the best thing that could have happened to you.  It sometimes takes you cracking, falling apart in total destruction for you to find the truth of who you really are.  To set you on the path that you are supposed to be on.

Today someone fell in love, and someone lost the love of their life.

Today someone lived through an accident that should have killed them, and someone else didn’t wake up this morning because they died in their sleep.

Today someone made their parents proud and today someone crushed their parents’ hearts.

Today someone was healed from cancer, and someone died from cancer.

Today could be the best day of your life or the worst day of your life.

You have seen my descent.  Now watch my rising – Rumi

At some point the destruction hits you or misses you.  But take heart, because it isn’t really destruction.

When life buries you, remember that you are seeds.  You will rise back up out of the darkness.  You will shine again.  Like the ocean tide, you rise, and you fall, and you will rise again.

Where you are headed is much more important that what you have left behind you.  You keep growing, keep learning, and you try new things.

You are human, not perfect, but perfectly imperfect.  Be thankful to be alive and still moving to fulfill your dreams and your destiny.  Embrace life with grace and courage.  See wishes floating on the breeze, parachuting into a new adventure!

Find Your Center And You Can Never Be Lost Again

“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking how you’ll escape one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it.  You just use the future to escape the present”  – Unknown

Do you know someone who thinks these immense detailed daydreams?  They can go on for hours telling you how when they win the Lotto they are going to do all of these wonderful things with their life.  It is always “someday” thinking.  Some fantasy of how someone or something will happen in their life, and everything will finally be the way they want it.  I have had this kind of thinking.  Dissatisfied with what life is, you escape into a fantasy of what you want it to be.  Which is fine if it is the beginning of making a change in your life.  But too many times, you just go round and round the labyrinth twisting and turning, but never finding the end.  You feel like you are doing something, but in reality you are lost and going nowhere.

“The point of the maze is to find its center.  The point of a labyrinth is to find your center” – Unknown

When you walk the path of the labyrinth, it is like stepping outside of time.  You leave everything behind you as you take the first step across the threshold.  With each step you can feel more and more stories, emotions, entanglements dropping off your shoulders.  The stresses of trying to work fulltime with a demanding career.  The stresses of personal family crisis’s that wobble as you try to balance them.  They tip this way and that, and keep you doing a running dance step striving for balance.  Work project, home projects, a spouse and children’s needs, making your own personal transformations.  Everything just drops off the shoulders with each new step.

“You are looking for the answers to the questions of life.  Lots of reflecting about what has been and gone.  Looking at the here and the now.  Wondering what is ahead of you.  You are being guided by your own guides.  They will light up your way, and show you the path ahead” – Unknown

Finally you enter the center and sit in contemplation.  You convene with your soul.  You realize that most of these stresses are of your own creation.  You are the one who makes the rules, who sets the boundaries, who creates the vortex they whirl around.  So you can set them down.  You can let them play themselves out.  You don’t have to control them, structure them or mold them.

When you walk back out of the labyrinth, you can pick back up the things you dropped.  What has changed though, is that they are no longer the storm rocking your world.  The sunlight has entered into each and every one, and instead of thunder and lightening, you hear birdsong and crickets.  You feel the warm breeze lightly touching your skin.  You am grounded and centered.  You are recharged and ready to face reality once more.

“The intricacies of life are but common to all; it is how we untangle these twists that paints our individuality in the canvas of destiny.  We can choose to be lost in the labyrinth of our emotions or use these trials to harness our inner strength, but one thing remains constant in our lives, we have the sun in our hands”  – Dodinsky

One of my favorite scenes in the Star Wars saga, is when Luke is about to enter the cave.  He asks Yoda what he will find inside the cave.  Yoda replies, whatever you take in with you.  This is true for all of us.  The labyrinth may have monsters wandering the path.  They would be your own personal monsters that you took with you.  You have fed and watered them until they grew so large, you could no longer control them.  The labyrinth is filled with your desires, memories, fears, and passions.  In them you can find and lose yourself over and over again.  As the proverb says, “The only way out is through”.  Through dangers and hardships unnumbered, the fairy tales tell you how to slay the monsters.  You must figure out how to slay them, or they will destroy you.

“In the labyrinth, one does not lose oneself; in a labyrinth, one finds oneself.  In a labyrinth, one does not encounter the Minotaur; In a labyrinth, one encounters oneself”  – Unknown

Your will is strong.  The only power the monsters have is what you have granted to them.  You can revoke it any time.  Fears are like snowflakes in a snowstorm.  Each snow flake is so small.  But when they are joined by more and more of them, they can soon cover the world with a thick blanket of snow.  They can take visibility to zero in no time at all.  But the cool thing about snowflakes is that it just takes a little heat and they melt away like they never existed.  Every single monster in our labyrinth is like a snowflake.  A little heat and they will all melt into nothing, even the puddle of water will disappear.

“Go on with what your heart tells you, or you will lose all”  – Percy Jackson, The Lightning Thief

There is always the moment when the light shines down.  When the revelation strikes you and you see that all of the journey’s misfortunates have brought you and your dream to this very moment.  The moment of self revelation in which you can choose to follow the dream across the finish line, or to step backwards into the labyrinth and continue to be lost.  The moment of judging and forgiving yourself.  The moment of self love or self hate.

“You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going.  What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope”  – Thomas Merton

When all you talk about is finding your way out of the labyrinth, but you don’t take the steps to leave it, then it is time to ask yourself:  “What I am afraid I will leave behind me?”  “Why am I afraid to love myself?”  “Why am I afraid to go?”  “What am I afraid to admit to myself?”  The things both done and left undone haunt you.  They must be faced.  The truth hurts, because it matters.  When the pain of staying, finally exceeds the pain of going, you will free yourself.  But if you explore the questions, digging beneath them with curiosity, you can clean up your space and leave without the pain of departure.

” A labyrinth is a symbolic journey . . .  but it is a map we can really walk on, blurring the difference between the map and the world” – Rebecca Solnit

Trust your heart and soul to lead you in the right direction.  Even when you think that left is right, or up is down, trust the journey.  The side roads don’t really lead away from the destination, they provide needed instruction for the journey.  Just remember to use curiosity liberally.  To tone down the emotions, which can get easily out of control.  Have fun.  Explore, adventure, dive deep, climb high.  And don’t forget the questions – they are like umbrellas.  They protect us from the torrential rain, from the beating sun, and from seagull poop – and that is the most important thing ever.   Trust me.

“Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again”  – Joseph Campbell

Remember To Fall Asleep With A Dream And To Wake Up With A Purpose

Don’t follow your dreams  . . .  chase them!

  – Kunal Patel

Dreams come preloaded with a guidance system. They know the fastest way to bring themselves into reality.  Give yourself permission to listen to them, to step into who you are meant to be.  As little girls we are taught to play small.  Not to be too much of anything, because it is prideful to draw attention to ourselves.  Nick names such as “Miss Priss”, “Smarty pants” are designed to make us feel even smaller – like who does she think she is?  Little girls who aspire to do jobs in the Stem fields have to fight and work harder, just because “girls are not good at those things”.

Little girls with dreams become women with vision.

  – Unknown

Dreams also come with more than one path. I say this, because the fastest way is “as the crow flies” which means it is usually the harder path to take. Most of us would prefer the shortcut. The Staples “easy button”.  But the “easy” button doesn’t expand our comfort zone.  It doesn’t teach us new things about ourselves.  We don’t get to explore the depths of who we are and what we are capable of.  It isn’t the path to adventure.  The “easy” button is not the way to mastery or to accomplishing any great work.  It is about settling and living life in a rut, just a hamster in a wheel, running fast and going nowhere.  The harder path is over mountains, down steep ravines.  You  have to ford rivers at flood stage.  You trudge through hot dry deserts and lose your bearings in muggy swamps covered with mosquito bites.  The fastest way tests your mind, body and soul.  It builds you up, strengthening muscles in places you didn’t even know you had muscles.  At the end of the day, you may be exhausted, but it is a happy exhausted.  You have proven to yourself what you are truly capable of being and doing.

Follow your dreams even if it means standing alone.  Be different but stay yourself.

  – Unknown

It might be that we are not confident of your ability to take that harder path. I am a huge “Lord of the Rings” fan. When Frodo and Samwise go forward on the journey with just the two of them, they are definitely taking that hard path. I always thought that if the Eagles could rescue them at the end when the lava was coming to kill them, why couldn’t they have dropped them off at the mouth of the cave?  What Frodo and Samwise learned was there was a big difference in setting out on the journey to accomplish your dreams, and actually traveling and experiencing the journey itself.  It stretched them beyond every boundary.  Responsibility, wisdom, self knowledge, self reflection, fears, courage – every word was dismantled, tested in forges of fire, and rebuilt as they took on new meanings.

Everyone has talent.  What’s rare is the courage to follow it to the dark places where it leads.

  – Erica Jong

Don’t Let Insecurities Run Your Life. Fight For Your Dreams.

“How dare you settle for less when the world has made it so easy for you to be remarkable” – Seth Godin – Author and Speaker

Your dreams are calling you. Are you answering them?  Are you putting them through to voice mail because you don’t recognize the number?  If you recognize the number, are you putting it through to voice mail because you don’t want to have that inner conversation with yourself?

You know that one where you argue with yourself about what you are doing versus what you are telling everyone you want to do.

• What causes you to procrastinate, to put things on hold?
• How many of your dreams do you currently have in voice mail waiting for you to pick up the phone and return the call?
• Is your voice mail now full and you are totally missing any new calls?

I know that if someone compliments me, the first thought in my mind is discounting what they said.  When I was growing up my sister closest in age to me was always the pretty one, the beautiful one. She is 18 months younger, and her body matured faster than mine. She is several inches taller than my 5’3″. I was the smart one. This comparison ran through our childhood. To this day she carries that role of not being smart, even though it isn’t true.  I carry the role of not being pretty and discount anyone who says that it isn’t true.

Isn’t it sad how you prove that those family comparisons are true, simply out of habit?  You were told all of your life that this “story” created when you were tiny child is who you are and so you go around making it a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“What I know for sure is this:  You are built not to shrink down to less, but to blossom into more.  To be more splendid.  To be more extraordinary” – Oprah

There are days when I get a lot of Facebook friend requests on my personal FB page.  I am part of several large groups and whenever they have an influx of new people on their fan page, a number of people will friend request everyone in the group.  It might also be that people figure out I am the founder of LemonadeMakers and request my personal Facebook friend page too.

Then there are some requests from men who think Facebook is a dating app.  I try to screen them out but once in a while one makes it through.  When they say they like my smile – which is the usual first comment they make, I immediately think something negative like that’s because you don’t see the rest of me.

Do you do that? What is it that causes you to turn away from a compliment about your looks, the quality of your work – anything that seems personal? People could compliment you about your children or grandchildren and you wouldn’t turn away from the compliment. Only if it is personal about you do the alarm bells go off.

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start” – Nido Qubein

There was a commercial video I saw a few months back talking about the phrase “sorry” when we mean “excuse me”. It was about how often you apologize when you didn’t do anything wrong. It was by Pantene the shampoo company and it really reflected how many times you use it when you really mean something else.  A turnaround of this commercial is great.  Showing scene after scene of women who did not require validation from anyone else in the room.  Women who walked in and owned the room, like the leaders that they in truth are.  You don’t have to be the main character in “The Devil Wears Prada” to be successful, but you can take charge without apology.

You open an office door to talk to someone and say “sorry”. You brush by someone and say “sorry”. The list goes on.  Share this with someone to help you keep track of how many times you do this for the next few weeks or watch to see how many times you see it happen.  See how many times you or another woman says “sorry” when what should be said is “excuse me”. The suggestion is that we feel undeserving, and so say “I’m Sorry” for taking up your time, for taking up space, for thinking that you might have something to contribute.

Pantene Commerical

“Take charge, and don’t apologize for it” – Elite Daily

Sheryl Sandberg was really talking about this when she said, “we’ve got to get women to sit at the table.” She talked about how she went to a conference room for a meeting and the women were not sitting at the conference table, they were sitting around the table in the extra chairs against the wall. They were doing this even though there were empty seats at the conference table.

You need to stop letting other people who lack courage or determination to follow through on their dreams, stop you from doing so with yours.  You need to live your truth, and trust that you are more than worthy to sit at the table.  You need to live your truth and honor what you have to contribute.

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you:  I am here to live out loud” – Emile Zola

She felt that a big piece of why we don’t take a seat at the table is because we don’t want the label of “bossy” and the other “B” word when we take the lead. You shouldn’t be afraid to be as ambitious as a man. You should ask for what you want – the raise, the promotion, to take the lead. You shouldn’t be afraid to be told you have a beautiful smile.

So, I am ending this with my most favorite quote by Marianne Williamson because – How dare any of us settle for less when the world is waiting for us to be remarkable!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others” – Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”

Be The Change You Want To See

“Do the one thing you think you cannot do.  Fail at it.  Try again. Do better the second time.  The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.  This is your moment.  Own it”  – Oprah

In order to stand out, one must be different. I have always loved the saying “why fit in when you were born to stand out?” by Dr. Seuss. For me it was really hard to make this change, as I had spent most of my life being invisible.

I love using the analogy of a rainbow. It isn’t just made up of red, yellow, blue, green, pink, and purple. It is made up of 100 of shades of every color, and every mix of color imaginable. Take just the 1,000’s of shade combinations of purple in the rainbow. While you might think that no one will notice if one shade is not shining brightly, the rainbow is diminished in its beauty when that happens. It requires every single shade to be there, in order to be the beautiful promise of God. We require every one of you to shine brightly to deliver the promise of God, which he made when he sent you to this earth.

“Let excellence be your brand . . .  When you are excellent, you become unforgettable.  Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you’re doing the right thing, will always bring the right thing to you”  – Oprah

At work the panel of lights over about 10 desks in a row for some reason turns itself off and on by itself.  Since we are surrounded by windows you don’t really notice as it slowly fades to the off position.  It does a gradual shut down.  But when it turns back on 20 minutes or so later, you really notice the brightness of the light.  I missed it subconsciously.  It is funny how while I always notice when the lights have turned back on, I don’t notice the gradual turning off.  I think that leadership is like this.  You may be busy doing your work and not notice right away when leadership is missing – but when it shows up, fully turned on, you notice right away.

Be Unstoppable, Create A Living Legacy

“Love is the bridge between you and everything that you desire”  – Rumi

You came into this world to learn, to experience what life is about, and to leave a legacy.  Moral integrity is a huge part of the story of your legacy.

“Your story is the greatest legacy that you will leave to your friends.  It’s the longest lasting legacy you will leave to your heirs” – Steve Saint

Have you seen the Tom Hanks movie, “Bridge of Spies”?  It is based on a true story, taking place after WWII.  I found it very interesting how he was able to stick to what he knew to be right, even when it endangered his life and that of his family. He didn’t just accept the self justification that most would of, “you do what you can, cut your losses and accept what is left”.

“You have been assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved”  – Unknown

Because he was a man of high integrity and morals, he was able to do what no one else could do. He literally was able to move mountains, because of his moral integrity.  While he couldn’t prevent the guilty verdict for his client (he was guilty), he was able to maneuver the judge into a prison sentence instead of the death penalty. Then when his prediction came true about needing him for a future hostage negotiation, he was able to negotiate the return of an American pilot. And when destiny threw in a twist, he negotiated a second hostage return – a two for one, thereby freeing the innocent college student who got caught behind the Berlin Wall.

“Immortality is to live your life doing good things, and leaving your mark behind”  – Brandon Lee