Make Sure To Taste Your Words, Before You Say Them Out Loud

Judging a person does not define who they are, it defines who you are.  It is almost impossible to truly understand what another person has experienced in their life.  Even if you have experienced a similar trauma, you don’t have the same fears, doubts, sorrows or pain that they have, each of which colors their experience of the trauma.

It’s easy to look at people and make quick judgments about them, their present and their past, but you’d be amazed at the pain and tears a single smile hides.  What a person shows to the world is only one tiny facet of the iceberg hidden from sight.  And more often than not, it’s lined with cracks and scars that go all the way to the foundation of the soul.

  –  Sherrilyn Kenyon

That is why the very act of judgment is so harmful.  Most of us have the mean inner critic that creates a lot of havoc in our life.  We really don’t need the additional bench of outsiders judging us too.  Judging doesn’t bring anything positive to the table. 

There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.  Doubt separates people.  It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations.  It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.

  – Buddha

What doubt and judgment reflects of us is actually small prejudices.  These small personal judgments or beliefs we make are deceptive because the are like the thorns – tiny, but dangerous.  It works its way into the body and festers,  creating an infection than can imperil your life.  This is what leads to extremist thinking and actions.  It is these thorns that lead to bombings, to being a sniper in a tower shooting innocent people, to so many of the mass murders and terrorist actions we see today.

Allow judgments, expectations, and illusions to fade into the darkness. And in the light, all that remains is love. 

  – Greig Grippen

True empathy for one another means that we step out of the initial judgment or thought that we have about ourselves or another person.  It requires that we look beneath the surface to see what the storms of life have dumped into us.  When you peer into the water of a lake, you see the things hidden from view. There is dirt, mud, rocks, sand, sticks, leaves, things that you expect to find.  But what else might be there?  What has the  rain, wind, flooding dumped into the water over the years? 

There will always be a reason why you meet people.  Either you need them to change your life or you are the one that will change theirs.

  – Unknown

I remember that some divers went into a small lake just a few miles from Seattle-Tacoma Airport after a bad storm.  The lake is surrounded by office buildings and homes.  What they found were lawn chairs, outside tables, and various things that had been blown into the water over the years from the homes around the lake.  They also found a very, very, old hand hewn canoe from a tree, thought to be over 150 yrs old.  Just like this lake had been hiding many things beneath the surface, so do we.  Empathy  is what allows us to dive deep and begin to truly understand what might be going on.

We also have to look at the reason we are making the judgments, from a self improvement perspective.  There is a saying that every judgment we make about others, is about something that we don’t want to admit seeing in ourselves.  So when we make that judgment about somebody’s body being covered by tattoo’s or that they have bright green or purple hair, or that outfit is too young for them and so on and so on.  What is that judgment reflecting about us? 

“Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “No, I’ll fall.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  “You’ll push me.” I replied.  “Go to the edge.” the voice said.  So I went and I was pushed and I flew.

  – Zen Proverb

I know that in the past for myself, I noticed that I made judgments about people who dressed differently than I did – in ways that drew attention to themselves, it was because I was jealous.  I was too afraid to call that much attention to myself.  Now that I know what was underneath of that judgment, it has shifted into being inspired by their courage.  What judgments do you habitually make that could be shifted into something positive?  Instead of judging others by the results of actions, what if we looked at the initial intentions, exercised empathy and went on from there? 

Life is a balance of holding on and letting go.

  – Rumi

The rush to judgment is the exact opposite of this.  It is a rush to hate on someone, when the true story isn’t even known.  The whole concept of bad news traveling fast is because no one has yet gotten all of the facts.  When my nephew was murdered, the headline in the paper was about one gang member killing someone in a rival gang.  My nephew wasn’t a gang member and had never associated with anyone who was.  He was simply walking through the park late at night taking a short cut to a friends house to get his bike and ride home.  He was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.  Two days later, the paper corrected itself, on a back page.  We see this happen all of the time on the internet.  Instead, wouldn’t it be nice to see some comments on lets not make judgments until we hear all of the facts of an investigation?

The secret in life is enjoying the passage of time.  Instead of clutching onto the past or fearing the future, experiment with letting go into the mystery of life.  Float on the river of time, curious about its direction, open to its changing nature.  You don’t really know where it’s going, so why not relax and experience the ride?

  – Elizabeth Lesser

Instead lets meet in the field, with the idea of laying aside the blame and judgments.  Lets allow ourselves to live life without the judgment of wrong doing or right doing.  Where instead, we can simply live a more loved filled life.  I know that this sounds like an unrealistic impossible place.  But even if we could come close to the edges of such a field, think about how much our own lives would improve.  About how much the world around us would be improved, just by us trying to live in this space.

In silence there is eloquence.  Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.

  – Rumi

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Enter Into The Flow of An Ever Changing Life

 “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like”  – Lao Tzu

Every year in January the majority of us will set goals for the new year. You may call them New Years Resolutions or goals. They can be personal goals such as your weight or physical fitness goals, or business/financial goals. What ever they are they generally designed to enhance your life in some way. 

“Try not to resist the changes that come your way.  Instead let life live through you.  And do not worry that your life is turning upside down.  How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come?” –  Rumi

One thing that I have discovered about myself is realizing when I am pushing a goal to happen in a certain way or time frame, life gets frustrating and hard. But if I step back and look at my goal from the aspect of divine timing, I can usually see that the reason why the goal isn’t progressing. There is something that I am missing, something vital to make it happen. When the progress towards the goal starts to become pushing a boulder uphill, I know now to walk it backward down the hill until the pressure is released. 

“When we resist change, it’s called suffering.  But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called awakening…, Another word for that is freedom – freedom from struggling against the fundamental ambiguity of being human” –  Pema Chadron

I step back and re-look at what I am doing. Re-look at the time table. Re-examine the reasons behind the goal to see if I need to adjust what the goal is trying to accomplish. I love the analogy of flowing downstream in a river. There are these little bays or inlets, eddies in the river where you can float in stillness. In these places, you acquire knowledge, skills, make partnerships, etc.., things that will be needed later down river. You have a chance to examine and revise your goals based on new knowledge. Then when the timing is right, you re-enter into the river and flow further downstream. 

“People don’t resist change.  They resist being changed”  – Peter M Senge

When you step out of the river of change, you are trying to keep your comfort zone in place.  Change threatens your comfort zone.  In the process of trying to keep a stable, balanced comfort zone you step out of the river.  You damn up the divine flow of your life.

• What if . . , instead of using the word “change” which might be threatening, you substituted the word “becoming”.  You are not changing, you are becoming?
• What if . . , instead of thinking that your life is falling apart from the transitions that are happening, you instead saw your life falling together, falling into place?
• What if . . , instead of feeling like you are a puzzle with pieces falling to the ground, you saw yourself as letting go of what no longer belongs in your life?

“It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it”  – Lena Horne

Stop struggling against the load, Instead, relax and float. You can float for hours. It is the struggle that makes you exhausted, wastes all of your energy and breaks you down, so that you give up. The struggle and the pushing come from trying to force things to happen a certain way.  You can force your foot into a shoe one size too small, but you will only cause blisters and pain for yourself.  Drop the expectations,, stop pushing for change, and let it unfold with divine timing. 

“Change is never painful, only the resistance to change is painful” –  Gautama Buddha

Go within, where the wisdom and clarity reside. Instead of having to defend yourself, or prove something, you discover the compassion to simply let life flow forward and outward in simplicity.

“If you are quiet enough, you will hear the flow of the universe.  You will feel its rhythm. Go with this flow.  Happiness lies ahead.  Meditation is the key.”  Buddha

The way you meet an ending impacts the new beginning.  Or to put another way, the way you meet change impacts who you are becoming.  When a door opens for you, it’s not just something new entering into your life.  It’s your life becoming something new.

Change happens whether you want it to or not.  So stop fighting change.  Stop striving for perfection.  Trying to manage change only slows it down, and your experience of change will be impacted by negative emotions.  Instead embrace change.  Lean into it.  Discover what lessons it has to teach you.  Take a moment to become curious.  Trust that it is leading you into a better tomorrow.

Ending with my two favorite Bruce Lee quotes:

“Empty your mind. Be formless, shapeless like water. You put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. You put water into a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend”  – Bruce Lee

And the second one is:

“There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there. You must go beyond them.  I wish you success in growing beyond any plateaus that you are currently experiencing in your life. Be water and flow” – Bruce Lee

This Is The Year I Am Unstoppable

This is the year, that I become the warrior woman that I didn’t think I could be.

This is the year, that every morning begins with a cup of the grandest vision I can imagine.

This is the year that I find the gold inside of me, and don’t try to dilute it.

This is the year that instead of allowing that critical voice inside my head to stop me, I will dust off my stiletto kick ass heals and crush it.

This is the year, that I let the wild and crazy girl go free.

This is the year that no one (not even me), can put out the burning desire that rages deep inside of me.

This is the year that “I am already everything I need”, becomes more than just a saying.

This is the year, that my “will” is stronger than fears resistance.

This is the year that I will forgive myself freely, and love myself relentlessly.

This is the year that my life is a living, breathing, screaming, invitation to believe in better things, not only for myself, but for the whole world.

This is the year that God is bringing new seasons of growth into my life.

This is the year that new doors of opportunity will up-level my life to a glorious future beyond my wildest dreams.

This is the year that the way I live my life, respects and enhances the freedom of others.

This is the year that I will always speak the truth, even if no one wants to hear, or will listen to it.

This is the year that I shine like a beacon through whatever dark nights come.

This is the year that I dance with change and transformation instead of fighting it.

This is the year that passion and purpose become that favorite dress that I wear for all occasions.

This year when I feel the start of something new, I am going to pay attention and follow the directions.

 

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Walk Away – Not From Pride Or Arrogance, But Because That Door No Longer Leads Somewhere You Can Live

We all stand at the threshold of a great adventure every day. It can be a scary place, because we all have our individual self doubts. We have to unlearn the programming that says it is selfish to put ourselves first. It is not selfish to love ourselves, to take care of ourselves, and make our own happiness a priority. As they say on every airplane takeoff, in case of emergency, put your own oxygen mask on first, then you can help others. 

Every soul is beautiful and precious; is worthy of dignity and respect, and deserving of peace, joy, and love. 

 –  Bryant McGill

You cannot change what is going on around you, until you start changing what is going on inside of you. We need to put on that oxygen mask, so we can take stock of what inside of us is not working. We need to let go of what is not ours to fix, put up with, or allow to continue happening.

We are all born with a purpose and a passion.  It is up to you to seek out that purpose and find your passion.

 – Billy Cox

We are fragile human beings who can be destroyed by another’s words or actions. If we are not being treated with love and respect, we need to see what value we have assigned to ourselves. The people that we surround ourselves with are a reflection of how we view ourselves.  We need to get off the “reduced last chance sale rack”, and get inside the fancy glass case where the precious jewels are displayed.

You are determining the future you every day.  Will the decisions you make today lead you closer to the person you want to be tomorrow? 

– Brenna Smith

How many times for example has someone said, “Where to you want to go to dinner?” and your answer was that you didn’t know or didn’t care.  You do know what you feel like eating, but somehow, you always say, “it doesn’t matter, what you do want?”  The scriptures say something like, he who is faithful in little things, is faithful in bigger things.  What it is talking about is the principle of patterns.  What you do in the big things has been formed by the habits of what you do in the little things.  The habit of always putting others before you, started in the smaller things, like what do you want for dinner.

Be authentic!  Don’t lower your dreams to fit it with others.  If people can’t celebrate your dreams, they are probably not your friends.

 – Phineas Kinuthia

We may be afraid that no one will listen to us, so why speak.  We may be terrified that they will laugh at our dreams and say they are unattainable. We fear being judged as unworthy, not enough.  We don’t want to be all alone and so we abdicate our life away, so that we will be accepted and fit in. This is the story that we tell ourselves so that we don’t have to change.

Instead we can start making choices that feed us, energize us. We can choose to be unstoppable. To be bigger than any worries that are buzzing around us. Those buzzing worries are just scenario’s that no longer serve to build us up. Release what is no longer serving you. Open the window shooing the fly to go buzz its way outside.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do, is also the right thing to do.

The universe is always speaking to us . . . sending us little messages, causing coincidences and serendipities, reminding us to stop, to look around, to believe in something else, something more.

– Nancy Thayer

You are more than you have shown yourself to be so far. You are more than you have been willing to see. You are stronger than you know. Trust your intuition and live a courageous life. 

Respect your efforts, respect yourself.  Self respect leads to self discipline.  When you have both firmly under your belt, that’s real power.

– Clint Eastwood 

Today is the day to get up and walk down your sacred path. Choose to dwell in divine possibility. Awaken to the divine guidance that has been sending you messages. Believe in the divine plan, that you are more capable than you ever dreamed. Remember that you will never had to sacrifice your dignity for your destiny.  If it feels like that is the choice, then your intuition is telling you to pass that choice by. 

Be not the slave of your own past – plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience, that shall explain and overlook the old.  

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The Butterfly Effect Is, Everything Happens For A Reason, Change One Thing, Change Everything.

Learn how to see.  Realize that everything connects to everything else.

  – Leonardo da Vinci

Change is a funny thing in our lives.  It happens everyday.  A seed breaks its shell and begins growing a plant.  The Apple Tree blossoms, forms the bud of an apple that grows and ripens.  The seeds are sown, they grow and produce according to their kind, and they are harvested, eaten and the process begins again.

In 1963 Edward Lorenz presented “The Chaos Theory” to the New York Academy of Science and was laughed out of the room.  Thirty years later, this theory was accorded the status of a “law” when physics professors proved it to be true. The original theory stated that, a butterfly flapping his wings set molecules of air in motion, which moved other air molecules and so forth until a hurricane was set in motion on the other side of the planet.  This change effect, states that in our own lives, even a small change can bring about a revolutionary impact in our lives.

We can look at this through the analogy of the ripple in a lake.  A raindrop hits the still water and starts a ripple.  Then another raindrop, and another, and so on.  Each one creates its own ripple.  These ripples expand out, and end up striking each other as the raindrops fall.  Each of these tiny ripples impact each other to create chaos in the still water.  In the same way, our thoughts, words, and the little details and actions that we complete or leave undone each minute, hour and day impacts not only our life, but the lives of others, both near and far.

Every single thing you do matters.  You have been created as one of a kind.  You have within you the power to change the world.

  – Andy Andrews

Your destiny is bound to the destiny of others.  They say, “the devil is in the details”.  The reason this is true is because it is the details that really change you, and the world around you.  You might think that big events change the world, but if you study history and trace backwards, it comes down to something that was thought to be insignificant, that really sets it all in motion.

Think back to something that happened in your life that you can see totally impacted your life.  Trace backwards to where the event really started.  Not the moment that all of the dominoes crashed down, but to the event that started the dominoes to tilt.   A close friend had some major changes happen in her life in the past 10 months.  She didn’t see the connections until just this past week.  When she saw them, she was astounded at what started the whole pattern to breakdown.

My friend and her husband decided the end of last year to move into a new condo unit.  It was a much nicer unit with more space and a great view.  The new condo was renting for $600 more a month than they had been paying.  It also had additional utilities payments that had been included in their rent for the previous condo.  So like most of us, she looked at her monthly budget to determine how they would be able afford the higher rent.

Her old place was next to a Starbucks, and they had been in the habit of going there for breakfast every single day.  So the amount of money they were spending a month, was just about equal to their higher rent payment.  So she thought they would just stop going to Starbucks, and the higher rent would be easily absorbed into their lifestyle.

They moved into their new home and adjusted their spending habits as planned.  This was the detail that escaped my friend when she made this decision, that she saw when she looked backwards.  My friend was contracting her wealth energy by making this decision.  Starbucks was part of her wealth profile.  She felt wealthy by going there everyday, and spending that much money on coffee.  It gave her the expansive energy of abundance.  She could afford to do this, therefore she was wealthy.

A few months later, she noticed that her business was slowly contracting and they were month over month earning less money.  This in turn caused her to further retract her spending habits.  Then my friends husband told her he was leaving her.  He had reconnected with his first wife and decided to divorce my friend, and begin a new life with his ex-wife. 

My friend was devastated, as she hadn’t seen it coming.  It was like she was getting hit after hit.  At one of their meetings to discuss their divorce, she finally got enough courage to talk to him about what had happened.  She asked him, when his feelings for her changed?  He told her that it was after they moved.  He felt like they were losing their lifestyle, and that it started with Starbucks and then continued on to other things. He didn’t want to live that way.

That was when the “lightbulb” went off in her head.  Starbucks had been the energy of her feeling wealthy. When she made that decision, that started the rain drops hitting her lake.  The more raindrops that fell, the more the ripples contracted her wealth energy, which caused her business to lose more revenue.  Those ripples hitting upon each other changed every bit of positive flowing energy in her life.  It was contraction after contraction in every aspect of her life. 

Perhaps the butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness yet become something beautiful.  While she has been through hell the past few months, as soon as she saw the connections forming she immediately started shifting her energy back into the space of abundance.  Her business has fully recovered, and is currently more successful than it was this time last year.  She learned a powerful lesson that has been known for centuries. 

Everything is alive; everything is connected.

  –  Cicero

She feels that if instead, she had thought expansive thoughts, such as what can I do to increase my revenues to afford a higher rent, that her business would have grown and expanded.  They would not have had to reduce their lifestyle, and things would have continue along the same path with her husband.  Now while we can’t say for sure that her marriage would have not ended, but it certainly seems possible that she is correct.

Think back into your own life when you had a situation like my friend.  A time when life started going downhill fast.  A time when one domino after another seemed to be falling.  A time when you hit rock bottom.  Now trace it back to right before it all started falling apart.  There in that space, you made a decision, that was probably a decision of contraction.  There was something there that was a tiny detail, that you didn’t realize was connecting your life and holding it all together. 

When one tugs at a single thing in nature, one finds it attached to everything else.

  –  John Muir

This is so important to remember.  Contraction of energy will cause our connections to spin out of control.  It is expansion of energy that grows into abundance.  It is expansion of energy that creates love and compassion to one another.  This is what we need more of, both in our personal lives and the world.  It is the answer to all questions, expansion of love.

Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it.  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  All things are bound together,… all things connect.

  – Chief Seattle

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Remove The Boundaries And Make Your Dreams A Reality

In 2013, in Oregon, teenage sisters Hanna (age 16) & Haylee (age 14) lifted a tractor to save their father pinned underneath.

In 2015, in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Nick Williams lifted a four-wheel-drive vehicle to save a young boy pinned beneath its tire.

In 2015, in Vienna, Virginia, Charlotte Heffelmire was able to momentarily use incredible strength to free her dad from a GMC pick-up truck.

“The only thing limiting us in life is our belief that there are limits” – unknown

What do these three things have in common?

They are what you call miracles, extreme feats of strength. Adrenaline on overload. What they demonstrate is that the rules, boundaries and limitations don’t exist.

Why? Because you can blast through them, when you don’t stop to think about it. These examples show people who did something their logical minds would have told them was impossible. But because someone they loved was in danger, they did the impossible.

There was a commercial at Super Bowl XLIX for Always #LikeAGirl. In the video an adult female shows them what it’s like to run like a girl, then a young female teen, and preteen female and last a little girl. The older girls ran in an unreal way that was weak and ineffective. The younger girls ran as fast as they could. The commercial highlighted the fact that most women when they hit puberty, take in limitations to what they can do and be. 

“Our beliefs are just thoughts with emotions tied to them that we’ve taught ourselves to believe are true” –   JV Crum III

As teenagers, in order to fit in, you started holding back on what you were capable of.  75-80% of your negative thinking patterns come from negative beliefs that you have made up about yourself. 

When I started school, I was four years old, turning five in November.  I entered first grade, because my school didn’t have a kindergarten.  So, I was very small and always 1-2 years younger than everyone else in my grade. 

I was chosen last for any sport activity.  I formed the belief that I wasn’t good at sports.  Because of this belief, I never tried.  To this day, I am not active in any sports.  This is just a belief, and only my reality as long as I let it be. 

Ernestine Shepard, is a body builder.  She believes that age is nothing but a number.  Because of that belief she is doing some amazing things.  When she was 56 years old she decided to become a body builder.  In 2010 she entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest female body builder.  At 83 years old she is still going strong.  “I am out running/walking at 3:30 a.m. in the morning with a group of people, seven days a week,” Ernestine told the Miami Times. “I eat very healthy and eat five meals a day every day. My gym schedule consists of going five days a week and doing a variation of 100 sit-ups per day.”

She has been on Oprah and recognized throughout the world for what she is doing. She teaches an Energy Fitness Class at a gym.  She has a video created by Prevention Magazine.  She is an excellent example of how it is never to late to take a negative belief about yourself, and break through any self imposed limitation with a new positive belief.

“Don’t limit yourself.  Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do.  You can go as far as your mind lets you.  What you believe, remember, you can achieve”  – Mary Kay Ash

All of us continue to allow limitations to rule our lives as adults. Some limiting beliefs are conscious and some unconscious. You need to realize that it is all just an illusion, a false belief of your imagination.

At one time there was a saying that if God meant for man to fly, he would have been given wings. The Wright Brothers refused to allow that limiting belief keep them from their dreams. 

Your beliefs challenge you to get creative.  You can choose to rise up and create what is needed to be successful.  Failures come when instead of rising up, your mind creates road blocks.  Your mind comes up with all of the perfectly good reasons why it can’t possibly work.  Why you are “not enough” of something to make it happen.  This path of limited thinking leads to failure.

People with boundary problems have distorted attitudes about who is responsible for failures in their life.

• Your parents made mistakes in how you were raised.
• Your have relationships right now don’t allow you the freedom you need to be successful.
• You don’t have a college degree.
• You are poor.
• Someone is out to get you at work.

The excuses list could go on and on.   The truth is that you have built boundaries all around your excuses and painted yourself into the proverbial corner.  The corner is limiting, but it feels safe.  You lack the courage to step over the line and actually risk pursuing something you want.  You are just plain afraid of any change in your life.  It happens to everyone all the time.

“Boundaries are for those who are too afraid to take the leap”  – quoted from @Business Beware

If you accept a limiting belief, it will become your truth.  What walls have you built over the door of opportunity that you are ready to blast into bits? What limiting belief are you ready to let go of?

Share with us your limiting belief that you are letting go of.   Your share will help all of us to do the same.

(“And She Lived Happily Ever After”) Wrong. “And Then She Created A New Beginning” YES!

 

Jack Canfield tells a wonderful story of an elderly woman who is meeting with her minister to plan out her future funeral. She tells him all the things that she wants around her and she says that she wants a fork. Puzzled the minister asks her why a fork? So she says, “when they have the potlucks at the church you know you are going to have a special desert, when they say to save your fork. The fork is to remind everyone that the best is yet to come.”

When a friendship, relationship ends, or a loved one dies, it can seem like our broken heart is all that we have left. There can be no happy ending. That is when we need to remember the story of the fork. We need to remember that the best is yet to come. We may not even see a glimmer of what it could be. We may look at the broken pieces of our heart and think that there is no way it can be mended.  “new beginnings are often disguised as painful endings”  Lao Tzu

But what we are doing is not really mending the heart. It is giving the heart a new beginning. Think of a clear calm lake. No waves, just a perfect surface reflecting all that is around it. Now pick up a stone and throw it as far as you can into the lake. As it hits the surface, it creates a ripple on the surface of the lake. It starts small and expands out to the entire lake. Eventually the ripples expand to the point that the surface of the lake is completely calm again.  “Start where you are.  Use what you have.  Do what you can.”  Arthur Ashe.

However the lake has been forever changed. It now contains that stone on the bottom of the lake. This is our heart. Our heart will never be the same, as it contains both the love and heartbreak that occurred. It can come back into it’s new shape, and look the same, but it has been forever changed. It is always a new beginning.  “I feel a new beginning coming towards me and I’m running to it with open arms.:  Unknown.

So when someone or something breaks your heart, know that eventually the ripples of sorrow, loss and pain will expand out and fade away. Our heart has been forever changed by the loss, but remember the fork – the best is yet to come. A new beginning.  “Every day is a new beginning.  Treat it that way.  Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.”  Marsha Petrie Sue.  Trust in the magic of new beginnings.  Look forward to what is coming next.

To Catch Your Dreams, You Have To Be Brave Enough To Chase Them

Have you ever heard of the question  – If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would you want to have to a dinner party?  Eleanor Roosevelt is on my list.  She seems to have been a remarkable woman.  Her advice?

“Do one thing everyday that scares you”  – Eleanor Roosevelt

I don’t live up to this quote, but I do try to do things that scare me.  First I procrastinate on them a little, though.  Most of the things that scare me, are things that I have never tried to do before.  So every year part of my goals, are to do things that I don’t currently know how to do.

Do you remember when you were a kid and you got your first bike?  I remember being so excited to be able to ride a bike like all of the bigger kids did.  It was a symbol of growing older.  A lot like getting your drivers license or turning 21, a true milestone.  First though you had to have training wheels. It took a time or two to figure out that they were keeping you from falling, because you had to learn to trust them.  Then came the day that you had probably been whining about, the day they took the training wheels off.  You were ready to balance the bike and ride it all alone.  After a fall or two, you figured out how to balance the bike and from then on you were no longer a baby.

What I remember most, is that even though I was scared of falling and getting hurt, I wanted those training wheels off.  Being accepted into the big kids group was more important than letting the fear stop me.  Always remember that when you are scared, you are thinking about doing something that requires you to be brave.  Riding a bicycle without training wheels for a 5 year old is being very brave.

“If it’s both terrifying and amazing then you should definitely pursue it”  – Erada

What is something that you have done this past year that required you to be very brave?  What were the training wheels that you removed, the thing that you were depending on, that you needed to let go, so that you could grow?

When I took my drivers training class, it was part of high school.  The class started right after school, and the first time behind the wheel you had to drive off a side street bordering the high school.  All of your friends would gather around the stop sign, waiting for you to drive the car out of the lot and up to the stop sign on the side road.  Of course, there were several sudden jerking stops as you drove toward the stop sign and all of your friends would laugh.  It was like a hazing in a way, because it eventually happened to everyone you knew.  At some point we would all be the object of ridicule.  But at the same time, it was like – cool, I’m driving a car!

These are the two examples that I keep in my head when I am trying to break through and do something that scares me.  Both of those things scared me, but at the same time, it was cool, look at what I am doing!  It reminds me of the hit song from “Panic At The Disco”, “Hey look ma, I made it”.  It also helps to have mentors like Eleanor Roosevelt.  People that you admire, who you can look to for guidance.   Albert Einstein is another of my dinner party guests.  He said:

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new”  –  Albert Einstein

I think that sometimes you are scared to want something so badly that it hurts.  You are scared of not only failing, but of succeeding and then being disappointed.  Of succeeding only to lose it later.  So you tell yourself that you are afraid of failure, but in reality, you are afraid of success not being enough.  Of success not lasting.

“Move out of your comfort zone.  You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new” – Brian Tracy

I have really thought about this fear of failure/success.  I love the breakdown of the process in the above picture – that moving out of your comfort zone is actually a process of moving from fear, to learning and then to growth. (note:  the photo is from Adobe and I can’t fix the typo)

Once I move past fear the feeling I have shifts into anticipation.  Like fear, it also begins and ends in the stomach.  Like riding the roller coaster as it climbs up and up to the sky, and then hurtles you down to the earth, whipping you back and forth through the turns.  The wind blowing against you, your stomach lurching up your chest as you hold on tight.  Then all of sudden the ride is over and you are running back to the end of the line to do it again.  This kind of fear is telling you that being scared can be a thrill, because you are learning and extending your comfort zone at the same time.  That what you are about to experience by entering the growth zone is worth breaking through the hesitation and going full out.

“Life is inherently risky.  There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing”  – Denis Waitley

They say that at the end of a persons life, what they talk about is the things that they didn’t take the risk and try to do.  Being in love, is one of those risks.  Being afraid of being vulnerable, of being rejected, they hold back the words.  At the end of their life they regret not telling people how they really felt, not saying “I love you” enough to those that mattered to them.  When they had the opportunity, they shrunk back telling themselves, “they know how I feel”.  While that may be true, what any person wants and needs is to hear those words.

“If it doesn’t challenge you, it doesn’t change you” – Unknown

So whether it is learning to ride a bike, drive a car, ride a roller coaster or say “I love you” – don’t let fear hold you back.  Be brave.  Say the words, do the deeds.  Feel the fear and do it because it is scary.  Do the things that both excite you and scare you at the same time.  Live your life as fully expressed, as bravely, and as committed as you can.  Just maybe if you can do that, you’ll get more than you ever could have imagined.

“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them”  –  Walt Disney

Transformation Is the Dance Of Life

What Would Your Life Look Like, If I Gave You The Key To Unlock Your Full Potential?

Have you ever said, “I would be happier if .., fill in the blank ____________ (my spouse was …,, my job was…, my weight was ? lbs. less?  etc…)”  I am going to use my weight as the example, but you can substitute anything in your life, that is currently not bringing you into a state of joy.  As you read through this, you can just adapt the process around your job, your spouse, your family, your finances, etc…

Never put the key to your happiness in someone else’s pocket  – Unknown

This includes the pocket of your self saboteur.  Have you ever counted calories?  Have you counted steps?  Weighed yourself every day to see if you released a single pound?   I know I have.  I have a Fitbit and I watch the numbers go up until I reach that 10,000 step mark.  I worry over what I am eating and snacking on.  What I recently discovered about this, is I am in fact disempowering myself.

Old ways won’t open new doors.  – unknown

A new way of saying Einstein’s definition of insanity.  I am “trying” over and over again to have better control, so that I can become healthier.  Old ways that didn’t work the first time.  It is sort of like banging my head against the door, hoping this time it will open for me.  I keep “trying” to get myself out of the obesity designation.  What I am in fact doing, is disempowering myself from being successful.  I am empowering my view of my weight, to have complete control of my eating and exercise habits, setting myself up for self sabotage.  I have put the keys to my happiness in the pocket of my self saboteur.

Find a heart that will love you at your worst and arms that will hold you at your weakest.  – Unknown

That heart and those arms need to be yours, not someone else’s.  When something isn’t working, then study, research, read and listen.  It never has failed me that someone will say something that triggers my mind to go down a rabbit hole and come up with something that my heart and soul have been trying to communicate with me.

Dear Destiny,  I am ready to listen now.  – unknown

When I walk every day, I listen to podcasts.  I have Tony Robbins, TED Talks, a NPR show called Scratch, EWomen’s Network, Success Magazine, and several others that I listen to.  I listen to whatever is next on the list.  This past week, I pieced something together from several different podcasts that became an “aha” moment. I needed to listen to my inner genius.  Those who listen to their inner genius often end up changing their world.  So I asked myself, “What is it still possible for me to do?”  Notice that I said do, not try.

I have been trying to discover through hits and misses what is contributing to the weight I have, and what I might do to be more successful in releasing the weight.  It isn’t as simple as diet and exercise.  What I received this week was a couple of keys.

Key #1 – Don’t try.  Trying doesn’t last long.  Trying is one of those words that sounds positive, but doesn’t have a high energy vibration to it.  Falling back to the famous Yoda quote – “Don’t try, Do or don’t do.”  Instead the key that fits into the transformation door, is to commit myself to “mastery” of releasing weight and becoming healthy.  Mastery is hard work.  You have to learn something completely.  To take it apart and put it back together again.  To understand the purpose and reason for every single part, and the actions it plays.  It takes time.  But when you become a master at something, it doesn’t just change you, it transforms you.

Mastery reflects understanding diet and nutrition, not generally, but as it applies to my individual DNA and my physical body.  It reflects understanding how the feelings I am feeling each day (my moods, and memories) enter into the equation.  It is about paying attention to my instincts or gut reactions to the pain and pleasure that is happening to me moment by moment.  And lastly it included my thinking or my intellect.

There are powers inside of you which, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.    – Orison Swett Marsden

Key #2 – Realize that my mind plays this game of chaos.  I can tell that my weight is affecting my general health.  I am exhausted.  I have digestive issues among other things happening.

But my mind likes the chaos it understands, better than the chaos it doesn’t know.  It started from fear.  It said it was trying to protect me from unwanted attention.  It told me that I didn’t want to be like my mom, and hurt people that I loved.

So add in a few pounds, plus a few more.  Still getting attention, don’t worry, just add a few more pounds.  My own subconscious good intentions will kill me.  I needed to forgive myself, and let go of the need for protection.

Forgiveness is not something we do for other people.  It’s something we do for ourselves to move on.   – unknown

Key #3 – I am changing the interior landscape a little each day.  I really never practiced self care.  It was always care for everyone else first, and I got whatever was left over. 

So it is like going from the hard dry desert to a beautiful flower garden with a stream flowing through the middle.  I had to dig up the soil.  I had to put in some fertilizer to bring it up to optimal healthy soil that would support the growth of the flower garden. 

I then planted seeds.  I watered them.  I weeded out what doesn’t belong or bring me joy.  I brought in some nice chairs to sit in.  A small table to put a nice glass of lavender lemonade on.  I transformed the desert of “not taking care of myself”, into a place that empowers me to do self care.

Your success and happiness lies in you.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.    – Helen Keller

 Key #4 – Gratitude.  Every day I am finding things about my body, my health, the way I am taking better care of me – ways I can be grateful that I have this opportunity to bring back vibrant health to me.  Gratitude pays homage and honors the steps I am taking.

It says that while I am not where I want to be, I am making progress.

It says that I don’t have to beat myself up on the days I fall short of 10,000 steps, or have the strawberry shortcake for dessert.  It says that I will continue to be committed to bringing my body into a completely healthy state.  The “friend” needs to be “you”.  Self Love.

I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me, and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.   – Abraham Lincoln

If you find yourself spending a lot of time and money, and not making any progress, you are in fact, stuck in neutral.  It feels like you are in drive, because you are counting calories, you are weighing in, you are restricting your food intake, but you are in fact stuck in neutral. This is evident when day after day, no weight is released. Your subconscious mind has you stuck in the chaos you know.  You are blindfolded as to what is really happening.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach.  The world you desire can be won.  It exists  . . . it is real . . .  it is possible . . . it’s yours.    – Any Rand

When you are not reaching your goals, you need to stop.  Take a deep breath and look at what you are doing. First look to gratitude to where you are on the map.  Then look to the patterns of the familiar chaos – what is eating up your time, energy, money, contributing to your frustrations?  What story are you buying into that creates the “I am too tired” to walk tonight?”  What food cravings around caffeine, sugar, processed foods, fast foods are you having because you are bored or stressed out?  These stories are your self sabotaging patterns.  If you can start to recognize them, then you have the potential to transform them.

The will to win, the desire to succeed, the urge to reach your full potential…, these are the keys that will unlock the door to personal excellence.    – Confucius

When you have mapped out where you are, then you are ready to put the car back into drive and put your foot on the gas.  You do this by getting deeper into personal mastery.  The neutral gear is calling your attention to some part of the chaos, that is not working for you any longer.  Something that needs to be down shifted, released and/or transformed.  Once you have gotten this new piece of knowledge into your head, drawn it down into your heart to become wisdom, then you can release your passion to fuel your motivation.  You can realize your expanded potential and unlock a new door in your life of transformation.

You have always possessed the keys of transformation.  The divine puts the doors of opportunity in front of you, over and over again.  It is up to you to put the key in the lock, and go through the door. When you do that you discover untold potential and mastery within yourself.  You have more natural potential than you could use in 100 lifetimes.  Don’t let this life go by, not even using a small fraction of it.

Questions provide the key to unlocking your unlimited potential.   – Tony Robbin

Leave Fear Behind You, Face Everything And Rejoice

Women who run with wolves have discovered something about themselves, that allows them to leave behind the fear that is expressed because of going outside the comfort zone.  See beauty in being able to walk alone or with the pack.  Because you are unafraid, you may be called names by those who will fear you.  Labels like defiant, incorrigible, impossible, wild and untamed by society.  Wear these labels with pride.

When you live with fear, you will always be “Finding-Excuses-And-Reasons” (F.E.A.R.)why you are not living the life you are yearning for. Why do you experience this type of fear? It comes from a lack of self love, self trust, and self care.

You don’t think that you have the courage; that you don’t deserve it; that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.  You have bought into being small.  Bought into not taking up a lot of space.  Bought into being unworthy.  It is not your true nature.  It is not who you are deep in your heart.  It is not who you are yearning to be.  Do not become an endangered species.  Do not muffle your soul for the sake of others.

For women who run with wolves, you have discovered S.E.L.F. which stands for Sacred-Empowered-Liberated-Self Care

She sees herself as a Sacred being

She sees herself as an Empowered being

She sees herself as a Liberated being

She sees herself as a Fearless being.

•  She runs with a vast community of souls, who hold and support her.
• She knows as a sacred being she is never, ever, truly alone. 
• She is honored as a wisdom keeper, an empowered being that has grounded herself into the earth. Her roots run deep into the earth and support the work she does in the world.
• She knows that she is a liberated woman who came to this earth to free those who have become shackled to the stories of not being good enough, pretty enough, or worthwhile.
• She is fearless because for her the word fear is a word of high integrity, because for her it means Face-Everything-And-Rejoice (a transformed definition of fear).

Her purpose is to remind others of their own sacred agreements they came here to fulfill. Of the love they have for each other. To free them from their self made chains and fulfill their own purpose in being here.

She knows that she can be grateful for each fear that is faced down and transformed into something wonderful. She is rejoicing because she is working with others out in the world to build a bridge to shift our world from the challenges we see happening today, into a place of unity, love and trust.

If you can change your definition of the word fear, you can change your world.

To fearless women, I am honored to be your sister.

Below is a copy of my poem which expresses these thoughts.

The wolf howls at the moon, not out of loneliness,
As he knows he is one with the universe.
He howls out of gratitude to be a member of the pack.

He remembers those he has traveled with in past lives, 
He sees those he is traveling with again.
He rejoices in his vast community of souls, knowing that he is truly never alone.

The great spirit has honored the wolf with a voice that sings out in the darkness.
He honors the great spirit by singing to us,
“Do not be afraid, for you are not alone”
“I am here, and I remember you even if you have forgotten”.

Like the wolf I sing out to you, through my words on a page I say,
“I remember you, for we have traveled together before.”
I honor you that you have come again to do the great work before us.

Call out together with me as we gather our relatives that have forgotten their purpose.
Call to their minds our sacred agreement to meet at this time and place.
Whisper to them of the great love we have for each other and their hearts will remember.

Gather around as we build the bridge of knowledge and understanding.
This bridge will unite all peoples together in love
This bridge is shifting our world into a new age of unity, love and trust.

We are one,
One love, I love us
One trust, I trust us,
I honor our sacred agreements, I am here.

Face the fears that are keeping you locked out of your destiny. Unlock your cages and use those divine gifts with purpose to not only shift and change your world, but the entire world. Come and renew yourself. Find your voice and howl at the moon!

Don’t Ever Let Anyone Dull Your Sparkle

 She who leaves a trail of glitter is never forgotten. Do you believe this about yourself and your life? Or do you think it only about someone else.  Someone who is more beautiful, more intelligent, richer than you? Too many of us don’t even feel worthy to have the glitter, yet alone leave a trail of it for others to follow.

I just wish I hadn’t spent so much time worrying about not being someone else’s definition of enough.  – Sophia Bush

So many of us come out of childhood thinking that we are not enough. Not enough to have our parents love us the way they should have. Not smart enough. Not talented enough (insert – don’t sing, don’t dance, don’t draw). Not pretty enough. The list is endless about how we are not enough, to be loved, accepted, to have our dreams become a reality.

Always know you are more than enough.  You are precious, unique, and worth being adored, cherished and treasured! – Kandee Johnson

Try to say nothing negative about yourself for one hour, for one day, for one week, for one month.  The longer you can maintain this test, the more amazing your life will become.   It has been said that the biggest disease affecting humanity is “I am not enough”.

It is the driver of every act of self sabotage. When your mind thinks “I am not enough”, you will subconsciously self sabotage yourself out of anything that doesn’t affirm that lie.

Marissa Peer is a bestseller author, celebrity hypnotist and speaker. A lot of her focus is on helping people overcome this limiting belief to help them stop sabotaging their lives.

One of the things that she recommends is putting on your phone a timed text message stating “I am enough” and having it text you each morning and evening.

Write on the mirrors in your home, especially in your bathroom and carry around a piece of paper to remind you

“YOU ARE ENOUGH

– you are so enough

it is UNBELIEVABLE how enough you are.”

So think about your language and how often do you say things like –

• I am so stupid
• I always forget important things
• I am ___________ – whatever derogatory label you say about yourself (fat, lazy, ugly, etc…)

What is that something about yourself?  That quality you think is missing?  That place where you don’t think you are enough?

• Aim for balance.
• Make up your own rules.
• Create reasons on how instead you love that particular aspect of yourself.
• Follow your own path.  The rules of beauty and intelligence are all made up anyway.
• Start your own fashion and don’t let anyone tell you “who” you are.
• Love and appreciate yourself first, and then spread that glitter upon everyone you meet.

When you get praise, how often do you reject praise, and you add in a piece of criticism? “That is a beautiful outfit you have on today”, and you say – “this old thing, it makes me look fat”. Even scarier, do your sons and daughters say these things about themselves? When they are 1, 2 or 3 years old we celebrated that they took their first step, their first word, the first time they went potty in the potty chair. But there comes a time when they start school and they start being compared to others. Now they are experiencing the “not enough” and they start believing it.

The fear of not getting the reward becomes the fear of rejection.  The fear of not being good enough. . . is what makes us try to change, what makes us create an image.  – Miguel Angel Ruiz

The book, “The Four Agreements” by Miguel Angel Ruiz is a wonderful book that teaches you about the masks that you began wearing when you were children.  You will wear these masks all of your life, if you don’t learn how to remove them.  You need to be who you truly are, without the fear of rejection and not being enough.  Turn it around for yourself, for your children. Learn to accept praise without feeling unworthy. Hear the words you say about yourself, and change them when they are downgrading or demeaning. I always wanted my mother to say I did a good job – I made it a point to say to my children that they did a good job.

Lie to your brain, cheat your fear, and steal back your life of “I am more than enough” feeling that you had as a very young child.

• I am enough;
• You are enough;
• We’ve always been enough.
• Now grab the glitter and start leaving a trail, spreading it with every step you take.