Don’t Just Color Within The Lines, Draw New Lines And Make New Colors

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow.  So do it.  – Kurt Vonnegut

• Do you remember when you were little and you felt free to experiment?
• When you didn’t comprehend failure?
• How you lived in the moment, and it was enough to just be?
• Before you were made to conform and color inside the lines?
• Can you remember when you could see things that other people didn’t see?

To experience peace does not mean that your life is always blissful. It means that you are capable of tapping into a blissful state of mind, amidst the normal chaos of a hectic life.  –  Jill Botte Taylor

 Her life improved dramatically, when she decided to break the rules and find beauty where she’d been told there was none.  – Ashlin Nawel Habes

We Have The Power, Freedom And Courage To Change

“Don’t force yourself to fit in where you don’t belong” – Unknown

“Whatever the new beginning is for you right now, allow yourself to be swept away by the sweet freedom that comes with it.  Growth is around the corner” – Amanda Christian

“Anxiety happens when you think you have to figure out everything all at once.  Breathe.  You’re strong.  You got this.  Take it day by day”  – Karen Salmansohn

Sometimes Brokenness Gives Birth To Transformation And Wisdom

“And one day she discovered that she was fierce, and strong, and full of fire, and that not even she could hold herself back because her passion burned brighter than her fears”  – Mark Anthony

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

“Ruin is a gift.  Ruin is the road to transformation”  – Elizabeth Gilbert

“Experience isn’t what happens to you; it is what you do with what happens to you” – Aldous Huxley

“We are so afraid to change careers, to end relationships, to outgrown people or places – and that’s just growth.  To me, choosing to go toward the cracking in order to keep expanding is the only way.  The only way to get out of pain is to go through it.  Pain is information”  – Sophia Bush

“This very moment, if you are living totally, all concern for the future disappears” –  Osho 

“There is no other greater ecstasy, than to know who you are”  – Osho

“The only limits you have are the limits you believe”  – Wayne Dyer

Free Your Soul

“You must learn one thing.  The world was made to be free in.  Give up all other worlds except the one to which you belong”  – David Whyte

“That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call your “free will” is your mind’s freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, is the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character”  – Ayn Rand

“In order to be who you are, you must be willing to let go of who you think you are” – Michael Singer

“. . , What I can do is offer myself, wholehearted and present, to walk with the people I love through the fear and the mess. That’s all any of us can do. That’s what we’re here for” – Shauna Neiquist

“I want you to always hold your head up and follow your dreams wherever they take you.  Don’t you ever listen to the people out to hurt you or make you cry.  Listen to your heart and be better than them.  No one gets ahead by hurting others.  The only real peace anyone will ever have is the one that comes from within.  Live your life on your own terms and make it a happy life.  Always. That’s what’s important . . . ,”  – Sherrilyn Kenyon

“You don’t always need a plan.  Sometimes you just need to breathe, trust, let go, and see what happens”  –  Mandy Hale

Freedom Is Found By Listening To The Heart

Have the courage to follow your heart & intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become . . . , almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure, these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.  Remembering that you are going to die, is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.  You are already naked.  There is no reason not to follow your heart.

  – Steve Jobs

I think that one of the hardest things for me to do is to take the time to just be.  To sit in prayer or meditation and just allow my heart to have its say.  I am so filled with doing and avoiding what really needs to be done.  The doing of things does need to happen – I have to pay my bills, read and respond to emails, write posts such as this.  I have to cook, clean and garden.  I work fulltime, so there are the hours spent there and commuting back and forth.  My elderly dad lives with me and I have to care for him.  So when I am avoiding something, like right now proof reading the final copy of my book, I am doing something like this that my mind says also needs to be done.  So allocating time to just sit and be like this photo, is hard for me.

I will persist until I succeed.  I was not delivered into this world into defeat, nor does failure course my veins.  I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd.  I am a lion, and I refuse to talk, walk, and to sleep with the sheep.  I will persist until I succeed.

  – Og Mandino

We think that it is selfish.  That it is not high on the list of necessary things to do for this day.  So when Mastin Kipp sent me an email with a version of this, I was inspired to write a post of my own. Because taking the time to find the freedom to do these things is just as important as your day job.  It is just as important as eating, and more important than cleaning the house and doing laundry.  We are not really living if we don’t take the time to do these things, we are just existing.  We are asleep when we neglect these things.  If we are truly awake, conscious and aware, then this has to be a daily part of our life.

The truth is like a lion.  You don’t have to defend it.  Let it loose and it will defend itself.

  – St. Augustine

If you want more happiness, more joy in your life, check the list to see what is missing in your daily routine.  Trust in the whispers of your heart, for it is leading you intuitively to this practice.  Follow through on your highest intentions, changing them from wishes to commitments.  Voice what matters, because if you remain silent, you are holding back from your life purpose.  Pursue your dreams.  Run after them, putting them into action.  Step by step the pursuit of your dreams leads you to have confidence that what you are bringing to the world matters.  If you have that confidence, then it doesn’t matter what other people say or do, you will stay in pursuit of accomplishing your dreams.  Fulfilling your destiny becomes a primary focus in life.

The greatest fear in the world is of the opinions of others.  And the moment you are unafraid of the crowd you are no longer a sheep, you become a lion.  A great roar arises in your heart, the roar of freedom. 

  – Osho

Forgiveness for yourself and others is necessary because we all make mistakes.  We all fall short of perfection.  Some of our friends and family may say or do something that discourages us from the pursuit of our dreams.  They don’t see or feel what you do.  So they put up road blocks thinking that they are protecting us from being hurt, when in reality they are the ones hurting us.  Try saying something like this to them that expresses compassion with what they are feeling, “What I hear is that you are in fear for me, and for yourself, in how these dreams are going to be fulfilled.  How it will impact my life, your life and our relationship.”  If we exercise empathy, we can look beyond their fears to see that they do love us.  This allows us to reconcile their actions with their intentions, and grants the space for forgiveness for any hurt we may be feeling.  Opening up the space for their heart to talk to our heart, so that they can not only hear you, but begin to understand.

Deep listening is the kind of listening that can help relieve the suffering of another person.  You can call it compassionate listening.  You listen with only one purpose, to help him or her to empty his heart.

  – Thich Nhat Hanh

We must do the same thing for ourselves.  Our shadows present a whole dictionary of negative comments on how our dreams are not going to happen.  They put up brick walls to protect us from ourselves.  We need to take down each brick understanding the motivation.  To exercise self love and self trust, help these gremlin shadows to see how important these dreams are.  Enlist their help for ideas on how we can safely walk the path of fulfilling these dreams, presenting a win/win for ourselves.

You will never be able to escape from your heart.  So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.

  –  Paulo Coelho

Each morning is a new day.  Each morning spend a few minutes in prayer and meditation.  Listen to the whisper of your heart.  Do today what matters most.  Breathe.  Love.  Trust.  Follow the freedom of your heart.  Use your voice boldly.  Live in freedom the life you have always imagined.

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Daring To Be Great

“Nothing can dim the light that shines within”  – Maya Angelou

It takes considerable strength to dare to dream.  To dare to be the one chosen to bring something special and wonderful to the world.  It means that you’ve taken the step of defining who you are at a soul level.  You are daring yourself to live up to that soul destiny.  When you dare to step out on the ledge, you realize that you are making yourself vulnerable.  Those who dare greatly, can fail greatly.  In fact, failures are a given.  You can’t step outside your comfort zone and not have some failures in your life.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly”  – Robert Kennedy

When you reach up to touch the sky, you will almost always find that there are those who want to knock you down.  You can’t listen to the bullies of the world.  You can’t let fear run your life. Your assignment, your commitment, your intentions are all too valuable to be derailed by the lies and hatred of those who can’t stand in your light.

“Advice is like snow.  The softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon and the deeper it sinks into the mind”  – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Some poems have so much learning in them, that it blows your mind.  Some truths are so universal and so grounded in absolute truth, that they define all cultures and times.  I think that the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling is one of those poems.  It was brought to my attention again when I read a blog that I subscribe to.  There is such a depth to it that I am only talking about a small part of it.  The part that relates to the courage you need to rise above all the drama that tries to attach itself, when you are daring greatly.  I will print the entire poem at the end.

“Throughout life people will make you mad, disrespect you and treat you bad.  Let God deal with the things they do, cause hate in your heart will consume you too”  – Will  Smith

I am only talking about the first stanza because we have seen so many people lately get caught up in violence, both with terrorism and workplace violence.  They fight against those that have different beliefs than themselves, as though having a difference of opinion makes theirs less valid.  They don’t understand that you can hold opposing viewpoints and not have to label one as right and one as wrong.

“You don’t have to disrespect and insult others simply to hold your own ground.  If you do, that shows how shaky your own position is”  – Red Haircrow

True warriors know that they don’t need to resort to fighting to be strong, to dare greatly and face the wind.  They can face the wind because they know what it takes to be different, and still be grounded in a fullness and ease of spirit and grace.  When you face the wind, you lift yourself up above the opinions of others.  You step into a space of knowing that what you are creating, manufacturing and generating is your own successful life.  You are fulfilling your destiny by daring to touch the sky.

“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain.  It takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving” – Dale Carnegie

One of the hardest things to learn as you mature, is that while people can say or do nasty things to you, you don’t have to get down in the mud with them.  Politicians in general (there are some who don’t feel it is necessary to degenerate their opponents to make a valid point) seem to get into name calling wars.  As an adult you will be disappointed by those who in order to build up their own egos begin tearing down someone else.  Sadly, you will see this kind of behavior not only in politics, but also in your jobs, in your families, and among your friends.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

Bullies and cyberbullies are becoming way too common.  I think that the leaders of all of the countries around the world need to understand, that when they act badly, it sets the tone for others to do so.  I can remember trying so hard to teach my children that people who bully others have a very low opinion of themselves.  They usually are being bullied themselves, or were bullied when they were younger.  They attack without reason, because in their minds they believe that if they hit first and hit hard enough, they are in fact protecting themselves.  They are hurting so badly that they need to hurt others.  I wanted them to be able to understand why someone would be mean, spiteful and say things that they knew were not true.

“Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating”  – If by Rudyard Kipling

How does a person listen to the lies that someone else tells or feel the pain of being hated, and not go down the same road in displaying that behavior back to the person who is hurting them?  Remember the childhood rhyme, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?  Or the “I’m rubber your glue, bounces off me and sticks to you?”  You may have tried to pretend as a child that whatever mean hurtful thing was being said, it didn’t effect you.  But it did.  You may have tried walking away, but usually they just followed you. So you became small, withdrawn and tried to take up as little space as possible.  You wrapped yourself up in silence and disappeared.

“Never be bullied into silence.  Never allow yourself to be made a victim.  Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself” – Tim Fields

How do you go from that child who tried to disappear, to the adult who steps out on the ledge and says, “Look at me – I am daring to stand up and touch the sky, to make a difference in the world.”  You could kill them with kindness.  Or deflect it saying that their energy or vibration was way below yours.  Or you could pretend that all their negative remarks did not even phase you, hoping eventually it would be true.

It isn’t just about surviving something.  Because if you are only surviving then you are still being a victim of the bullying, even if it happened years ago.  It is about forgiving and letting it go.  It is about having being free of the drama and leaving it behind you.  It is about living a thriving lifestyle.

If it is still happening in your life now, then think about this – what in your case is “the ball”, and how can you take it and “go home”?

“The way to work with a bully is to take the ball and go home.  First time, every time.  When there’s no ball, there’s no game.  Bullies hate that.  So they’ll either behave so they can play with you, or they’ll go bully someone else”  – Seth Godin

Put another way, don’t add fuel to the fire.  Without your fuel, the fire will go out.  How do you get into this frame of mind?  How do you not feel that you have defend yourself, defend your reputation, defend that your rights?  You stay in your own lane.  You keep dancing to your own rhythm.  Yes, it might be that some people who don’t know you well enough will listen to what the bully is saying and repeat it.  What is done in the dark will come to light.  Time has a way of showing people’s true colors.  Eventually if you stay in your lane, and keep your own internal rhythm strong, people will recognize who is living the good life, and who is the one trying to tear others lives apart.

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

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Everything In Life Is About Balance

One of the most common complaints is not enough time.  There isn’t enough time to get everything done.  When you have the demands of a career, a family, volunteering for your favorite charity, a spiritual life, trying to fit in physical fitness, etc. . . .  how can you fit all of that into one 24 hr time period, or even spread it out through your week?  How do you balance the hours in the day with everything that needs to be done?

The most common answer is something called “time management”.  I have read many books, heard speakers talk about it, but I have never been able to manage time.  The best I can do is keep that running list that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

“You can do anything, but not everything.”  – David Allen

What if it isn’t time management that brings a semblance of balance into a person’s life?  What if it is boundary management?

How many times have you said yes to your friend when she asked you to watch her kids, when you didn’t have the time to do it or even want to do it?  How many times do you have priorities screaming at home you want to get done, but you let your girlfriend talk you into going out on the town?  Not only did you burn up hours that you wanted to do something different with, now your budget is out of whack $100.00, and you didn’t even have “that” good of a time.

You could write a book of similar things that happen with work, such as having to work on Saturday because someone else in your department didn’t get their job done on time.

Or your child’s school talked you into committing to baking 12 dozen cookies for the bake sale.  You want to just drive by the grocery story and buy cookies from the bakery, but every other mom is baking and so you feel that you have to too.

All of these are not time management issues.  They are boundary issues.  You don’t know how to say no in such a way that they know you mean it.  How do you say no in such a way that they know you still love them, but “no I can’t commit to that.”

“Life is about balance; too much and too little can kill.  The best way to balance life is setting your boundaries and learning to say enough”  – M G Garcia

When you don’t stand up for the life that you want, then you end up living the life that everyone else pulls you into.  Boundaries keep your life on track and within the path that you have chosen to walk.

There are a lot of trainings and seminars that sound fun to me.  A lot of books that look like a great summer read.  A lot of TV series that look like they would be fun to watch (everyone at work is talking about them).

But I have boundaries in my life where I self-limit the number of hours I spend on things that are not furthering the dreams in my life.  I still enjoy TV and read great books, but I limit the number of hours that they suck up, because I could read book after book after book if I let myself.  The dishes would sit in the sink, the laundry would pile up and I would get around to a lot of chores as soon as I finish the next chapter – LOL.

So boundaries are both between me and the world, and between me and my dreams.  I don’t have perfect balance.  I binge on books or TV every once in awhile.  But I am constantly asking myself, “does this help me grow and expand LemonadeMakers in some way?”

When I do the occasional binge, it is because I have been working way too hard, and my brain needs a break.  I just don’t let my brain stay on a permanent vacation.  I love doing the research, finding the quotes and photos and writing these posts.  I love the comments people make and interacting with the community.  I am constantly learning new things so that I can bring them to my community and engage them in even more meaningful ways.

“Try to always live a balanced life.  Don’t deprive yourself, but don’t overindulge; don’t be lazy, but learn that it’s ok to relax; challenge yourself, but don’t be afraid to silly and let loose”  –  Alex and Ani

In addition to boundaries, balance is also about letting things go in your life.  Understanding the deeper concept of what letting go or giving up actually mean.  What is the difference between them?  How do we know when we should keep trying, and when we just need to stop?

I always think of the hospital shows on TV.  You see the doctor giving a patient who is having a heart attack CPR.  5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes?  How many times do you shock the heart to restart it?  There comes that moment when everyone else in the room has stepped back.  You can see they want to say, stop, this isn’t working.  But they are afraid to say it.  Then finally someone says, “you have to call the time of death”.  No matter how many times you try, that heart isn’t going to start beating again.

So how do you know if it is too soon or too late?  When do you let go?

When do you say goodbye to a job?  To a relationship?  To a dream?  To a belief?  When should you be holding on, and when should you be letting them go?

Balance is usually achieved by living between the two extremes.  Not letting go of things just because it is too hard; and knowing when to let go of things that no longer serve you.  Letting go of things that are actually beginning to harm you, because of your refusal to let go.

“Balance is not something you find.  It’s something your create”  – Unknown

You need to relook at what is happening with the thing you are trying to hold on to or let go of.

• Why are you being called to either hold onto it or release it?
• Is it tied to a fear?
• Is it too hard to accomplish?
• Is it unhealthy?
• Have you outgrown it?
• Have you just not grown into it yet?
• Does it still reflect who you are growing into being?

I always think of children when explaining this concept.  My son had a pair of rain boots that he loved.  He was around 3 years old at the time.  They were like fireman boots, all black, with a red circle around the top of the boots, and went up to his knees.  I noticed one day that he was squishing his toes to fit into the boots.  So I put them away in the top shelf of the hallway closet to save for his baby brother to wear when he was older.  Every time I turned around he had found those boots and put them on.  It didn’t matter where I hid them.  I finally had to give them away.

This same son, fast forward to high school age.  He enrolled in a drafting class because he was interested in drawing.  About six weeks into the class, he came home wanting to quit the class.  He said it wasn’t what he thought it was going to be.  He wanted to take a German language class instead.  I said he should stay in the drafting class and finish it.  My husband thought he should be allowed to quit it.

So he transfers into the German language class.  About six weeks later we were having the same conversation about the German class.  I told my husband that he needed to learn to finish what he starts.  Whatever reason he come up with for quitting, it wasn’t the real reason he wanted to quit.  The real reason he wanted to quit, was because the class just hit a hard spot.

When life hits a hard spot in a job, or a relationship or a dream – you might think it is time to quit.

• You might think that the fact that you are having problems means it just won’t work out the way you wanted.
• You might think that the hard spot is proof that you were wrong about that dream being your destiny.
• You might think that God is telling you to turn and go back to what you had before.
• You might think that you are being called to a different dream.
• You might think you should close the door on this one as being the wrong one.

The only way to know that you should keep trying or quit, is to ask yourself the hard questions around why you are doing so.  You need to look at your past and see what kinds of patterns you have in regards to trying harder or quitting.  You just need to keep growing into the best version of yourself.

Keep expanding your comfort zone.  Wake up and be conscious enough to understand when the subconscious is leading you astray.  To balance that understanding of when the subconscious is being tricky and telling you to walk away from something that you just had a setback with.

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

Remember LemonadeMakers is here to help you dig deep into these kinds of questions, to bring clarity and purpose to the forefront in your life. 🙂

Clarity, Conviction And Taking Action Bring About Transformation

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit.  Genius hits a target no one else can see” – Arthur Schopenhauer

What stands in the way of you hitting your target?  Your Dreams?  Your big hairy audacious goals?  How many excuses have you made up for why you are not trusting your soul to lead you in the right direction?  How many times are you going to use your family, your job, other people’s problems, as excuses to block access to the door of your own dreams?

“Creativity comes from trust.  Trust your instincts” – Rita Mae Brown

I am not yet ready.  As soon as I have everything organized, I will be ready.  As soon as I have my ducks in a row, I will be ready.  As soon as I . . . fill in the blank. (Finish?  Learn more? Buy a house?  Get the kids through college? etc. . . .).  There will always be something new to stick in that blank, that lets you stand in the way of your destiny.

The problem has to do with time.  There comes a time when you have used it all up.  Then all you have left is an unfulfilled life.

Not today, but later.  Tomorrow I will do it.  Too busy today.  Later I will . . .   Tomorrow I will . . . fill in the blank.  Like time is a blank check that you can write any amount you need into it.  The reality is “Someday” is never coming.

I used to tell myself that as soon as the kids were all in school, I would have time to write.  Then it was as soon as the kids were out of the house.  Then it was as soon as I wasn’t working so much overtime.  It was always, “as soon as” – that “Someday” just kept moving further and further down the timeline.  I could never catch up to it, until I decided I wasn’t playing the game anymore.  Then everything changed.

“It’s your road, and yours alone.  Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you”   – Rumi

Or maybe your excuses are you don’t know what you should be aiming for.  You don’t know what your life purpose is; you don’t know what your personal genius is.  Are you even trying to find the answers?

What sets your soul on fire?  What is it that you can see that sends your mind down the rabbit hole of possibilities?  What is it that so wraps up your heart and soul, that you don’t even hear the objections of everyone around you saying it can’t be done?

Your soul has all of the answers, you just have to ask the right questions.  Your personal genius sees what no one else can see, and if you aim your heart and mind to what it tells you, there isn’t a target that you can’t hit.

Or maybe your subconscious patterns have you stuck and asleep at the wheel of life.  You’re the dreamer in a dream dreaming, and you think that you are awake.  It reminds me of the movie, “The Matrix”.  Will you take the blue pill and stay in your dream or the red pill and follow the rabbit down the rabbit hole? (Side note:  did you know that Keanu Reeves donated approximately $50M which was almost all of his earnings from this movie to the special effects team, making them all millionaires?  I think he took the red pill in real life too.)

There is a big difference between knowing what you should do, and actually doing it.  It all comes down to the blue pill of knowing or the red pill of doing.  Doing requires you to initiate your life.

“The easiest thing is to react.  The second easiest thing is to respond.  But the hardest thing is to initiate” – Seth Godin

Or it could be that your resiliency has lost all of its bounce.  You used to be like Tigger and bounce everywhere and somehow, you’ve turned into Eeyore.  Now you have a dark cloud over your head shutting out all light.  Don’t let your mind enslave you.  Let go of the illusions created from failure or disappointment.  Free yourself from the chains of your own making.  Don’t make yourself an undiscovered genius.

The hardest part of hitting the target is the decision to let go of the arrow.  To take fear and doubt out of the equation.  To cast time out the window.  Passion unchains your creativity.  It removes the fear of change, the fear of success or failure.

“As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning” – Barbara Sher

All Things Are Possible

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

  – Mandy Hale

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

I will not trade my authenticity for your approval.

  – Wild Woman Sisterhood

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

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

  – Unknown

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

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

  – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

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

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

  – Unknown

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

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

  – Unknown

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

Transformation is often more about unlearning, then relearning.

  – Richard Rohr

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

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

  –  Socrates

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

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

  – Jack Canfield

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Reflections Of The Heart Liberate The Soul

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, show me who I really am. Many fairy tales tell of magic mirrors. Mirrors that can tell the future. Mirrors that show you your loved ones.  Mirrors that twist everything to mean something different than it really means. And mirrors that reflect back the truth to you. How do you know that the reflection back to you is the truth?

“The more reflective that you are at a soul level, the more of the real you comes into reality”  – Sheryl Silbaugh

A fun house mirror with some twisting of reality, changes how you really look. One mirror shows you a reflection of being short and fat. Another mirror reflects back to you the image of a really tall, skinny girl. Because of the shape of the mirror, the reflections are changed and altered from the truth of what you look like in reality.

Mirrors reverse everything.  Look at how her hand is touching the mirror. The mirror image touching back to her. It looks like the left hand is touching the left hand.  But in reality, it is her left hand touching the reflections right hand. So even mirrors that are true, still change what you see reflected back to you. The reflection back to you is in fact, backwards to reality. It isn’t the real you.

“In a mirror is where we find a reflection of our appearances, but in a heart is where we find a reflection of our soul”  – Unknown

Mirrors are obstacles to light.  Fun house mirrors distort what you see, creating illusions.  What if there were all different kinds of mirrors, each reflecting a different “you” based on what path we took?  Shards of reality based on different life decisions.  How would you pick which reality you wanted?

Based on a multitude of small decisions, how would you be changed? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in real life you could be like Alice?  Just step through the looking glass to see what would happen if you chose this job or that job? Should you leave your bad situation now, or wait another year?

“Life is only a reflection of what we allow ourselves to see”  – Unknown

The movie “Sliding Doors” is all about the thought of what if you made the train or missed it – how does something so small and simple change or not change your life. I love the concept of how a reflection actually bends back from the surface and allows one to think seriously or ponder what is being shown.

It takes some consciousness and understanding to start seeing who and what you really are. To see beyond the surface reflection, deep into the soul within the body. To understand why you make the choices you do? How much of what happens to you is really within your choices, and not fate or destiny driving you towards some unseen future.

“Time spent in self-reflection is never wasted – it is an intimate date with yourself”  – Paul TP Wong

The reflection you see in a mirror, is bent back from the surface.  It allows you to examine what you see from different angles.  You can bend the metaphorical light of your experiences, to see what is underneath.  It serves as a bridge between learning and experience.  You can remove the barrier of your feelings, thoughts, emotions from the experience.  You then see more of the truth, and less of the story that you tell yourself.

This internal dialogue stripped of the emotional charge, is what enables you to move from victim, past survivor, to a totally new space of thriving.  The depth to which you take these reflections, determines the kind of attitude and actions you take moving forward in life.

“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul.  to do this, you need to experience solitudes, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions”  – Deepak Chopra

Reflection provides an opportunity for you to open your heart and mind to your experiences. To see your wisdom and your foolishness. To see your strengths and weaknesses. It also allows you to delve in the possibilities of looking at those experiences through the viewpoints of others involved.

“Facing you, loving you and accepting you as you are can be painfully challenging, but it’s so necessary”  – Dau Voire

Recently my granddaughter got into a bit of drama with one of her friends. They had been out somewhere and my granddaughter borrowed some money from her friend. They didn’t discuss when it would be paid back. My granddaughter didn’t have a way to pay it back, since she didn’t have a job. She did some babysitting, but nothing on a regular basis. So this debt created some friction. Her friend asked her to pay it back, which upset my granddaughter because she didn’t have it. But they didn’t discuss their feelings, they both just pushed it inside.

“Everything in your life is a reflection of a choice you have made.  If you want a different result, make a different choice”   – blog.zerodean

When my granddaughter had a new babysitting job, she paid back the debt. But instead of apologizing for taking so long, she said, “here’s your money, now you can stop bugging me about it.” Of course, her friend was really hurt by those words. So, it escalated into a huge fight. Both girls had a party to the misunderstanding.  Neither girl was able to see how their own lack of communication created a mountain out a molehill.  Neither so far has made it to the point of realizing they were both in the wrong and owning their own part in the debacle.

“It’s unfair to yourself to justify why you’re holding on to toxicity.  There are lessons in letting go and moving on”  – Alex Elle

It is times like this that I wish we could hit a replay button, and see how the story that you internalize is not the true story. Both girls think that they we totally right, and the other is wrong. You too hide behind this gate of reality. You see a distorted image of what happened, of yourself.  You don’t want to be the victim. You don’t want to be the perpetrator.  In most situations in life you are one or the other, and sometimes even both at the same time. So, you create a story and you create drama where there shouldn’t be any.

“Self reflection is a humbling process.  It’s essential to find out why you think, say, and do certain things . . . then better yourself”  – Sonya Teclai

No one else can unlock that gate for you. It can only be unlocked by you. You can’t open anyone else’s gate either by argument or emotional appeal. I’ve had talked to my granddaughter and so far, she hasn’t been able to open that gate. My granddaughter has a saying when we talk, that I am judging her. And she is both right and wrong at the same time. Anytime you want to fix someone or something, you are in fact judging it or them. You are saying that something is broken or disconnected. So in that sense I am judging her, because I can see what is broken. But I am not judging her as being bad, or unworthy or less than she is.

“If you are still searching for that one person who will change your life, look in the mirror”  – Unknown

You do that to yourself all the time. You judge the actions or inactions that you take. You beat yourself up.  You should have done a better job. You shouldn’t have forgotten that important thing. What you need to learn is to take the take for reflection. See what is broken or disconnected.  Ask what you can do to alter the outcome. What can be altered and connection restored?  What is beyond your ability to reconnect? Release the judgement. Accept them as they are, or let them go.

“Be a reflection of what you’d like to receive.  If you want love, give love.  If you want truth, be truthful.  What you give out will always return”  – Unknown

Look into the mirror.  Dig beneath the surface.  Love and accept what you find.  Reconnect with your soul, with your life purpose.  Get back onto the right path for you.  Transform what can be changed and release what can’t.

Believe In Yourself And Be UnStoppable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Relax Into Surrender And Receive What Is Promised

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  What could be more insane than to oppose life itself which is now and always now?  Surrender to what is.  Say “yes” to life and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you”  – Eckhart Tolle

When you are in resistance to something you expend a lot of energy trying to stop something that can’t be stopped.

Imagine that you are holding a rubber band as far as it can be stretched.  At some point one of two things are going to happen.  The band will experience fatigue, break and snap your hands painfully, or you will let it go, releasing the tension.

If you find yourself exhausted every single day, you might want to check to see what you are creating resistance to.

What inner conflict and struggle is going on in your life?  What rigid habits or mind sets do you have which are in conflict with your journey?

Relax and tune into your inner guidance.  Follow where your intuition leads.  Then gently let go of what is creating this tension, the thing that is no longer serving you.  Experience the joy of renewed energy when you are in the flow of your life path.

Part of the process of learning to surrender to what is, is the process of learning to love who you are in this moment.  Accepting yourself with all of your imperfections actually empowers you to grow into your potential.

It is kind of opposite of what you may think.  You put yourself down thinking that condemning parts of yourself, is the way to change those parts of you that aren’t perfect.

Think of a metal spring.  Hold it between two of your fingers, pressing your fingers together so that it is totally compacted.  No space left.  This is how you treat yourself.  Like the expression, “too tightly wound”.  You compress your feelings, your desires.  You hold fingers tightly thinking that it puts you in control.  That you can force yourself to hide the parts you don’t want others to see.

“The greatness of a man’s power is in the measure of his surrender”  – William Booth

But at some point, your fingers are going to get tired.  When that happens you are going to let go of that spring.  Then that spring is going to bounce all over the room.

When that happens, you create a pattern of self-sabotage in your life.  Your life turns into a Greek tragedy. You implode and whatever you were trying to hide, will expose itself in a big way.

But what if instead of trying to hold tightly to the spring, you released the tension just a little bit?  Then a little bit more and more, until there is no tension left.  You find the spring just stands there, perfectly balanced.

By surrendering to who you really are, you empower yourself to become better.  Instead of being your enemy, it becomes your teacher.  You learn to work with it, instead of fighting against it.

“Surrender requires courage.  In meditation, you confront yourself with your problems again and again until you finally understand the absolute need to let go.  Otherwise, you will continue to emphasize the lack of acceptance, regrets, pain . . .   But  when acceptance comes, I can see smiles on your faces”  – Sahajananda

You can’t control other people’s actions or reactions.  You can’t really control your own.  You can learn to let go.

To be like water.  To flow through, under, over, around the obstacles in your life.

Trying to push the boulder uphill just uses up your energy and leaves you tired, angry and frustrated.  Going around the boulder and continuing down your path is much easier.  Don’t try to drag the boulder back down the hill with you.

Leave it alone.  When you surrender, you also release.  It is a do or don’t do thing.  You either surrender or you don’t.  There is no part way to surrender process.  Find the blocks and release them completely.  Or don’t.

It takes a great level of self-love and determination to live your life this way.  But it is the way to growth and change.  To be able to live life as the greatest version of your true self.

True surrender is not giving up or giving in.  It has nothing to do with failure.  It is not being defeated by something greater than you are.

It doesn’t mean that you become welcome mats and let everyone wipe their feet on you.

It is simply and profoundly going with the flow of life. 

Most of the rules you put into your life were built on the concept of fear.  Fear of being hurt, so you closed up.  Fear of being wrong, so you shut up.  Fear of being exposed or humiliated, so you became invisible.

Surrender is about being vulnerable to all of those fears.  To realizing that you are much stronger than you think you are.  That if the worst happens, you can live and grow through that experience in a new way.  You can transform through any experience to come out the other side, stronger and more beautiful than you were.

“The inspiration you seek is already within you.  Be silent and listen”  – Rumi

It is about accepting what is, not what you were in expectation of.  It is about letting go of the should’s and could’s, and accepting what is.  It is silencing the mind and listening to your heart and souls voice.

Go from being a “human doing” to a “human being”.  The mind is all about doing.  The heart and soul connection is all about being who you are at the center of your being.

Believe in your potential, have faith in what will be.  Like the caterpillar, have faith that when you emerge from the chrysalis an even better life will begin.