A Heroes Journey Begins With A Call Or A Fall – What Will You Choose?

Most of us are in what Joseph Campbell calls “Sleepy Land”. We get so bound up in the day to day details of living, that we fall asleep to our purpose.

The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, “Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there, and so it starts.

  – Joseph Campbell

Then one day it happens. We notice that we are missing something. We want more. We wake up to the fact that “more” is not more money.  It is not a better job.  It is not a bigger house.  It is not a more luxurious car. It is elusive, and we may not know what “it” is.  But we begin to figure out what “it” isn’t. It is our birthright,.  It is what takes our life from “normal” to “greatness”.

Heroes take journeys, confront dragons, and discover the treasure of their true selves.

  – Carol Pearson

Men like Steve Jobs and Richard Branson figured out what that was for them. And while they had all of the things that people think will make them happy, it was the “more” that actually brought them to greatness.  The dragons we must confront are all the lies that we told ourselves.  If I rise up in the ranks at work, I will be happy.  If I make six or seven figures, then I will be happy.  If only I had a sports car I would be so happy.  What we must discover is what “it” is.

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

  – Martin Buber

They may have started out after all of the material things, but they ended up with the “more”.  There is a Billy Crystal movie from years ago.  It was called City Slickers.  Billy Crystal’s character meets up with this cowboy who asks him if he knows the secret of life.  “One thing.  Just one thing.  You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”  Billy Crystals character asks him what that one thing is, and the cowboy replies, “that’s what you have to find out.”  It isn’t things and stuff.  It is something more.  It is something that demands more of you than you think that you have to give.  And if you find it, and follow it where it leads, you will lead a life you never thought would be possible.

A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.

  – Joseph Campbell

This something else is transcendence. Transcendence happens when we “reclaim the visionary, the utopian, the dream of the better or happier world”  – when everything that we touch becomes a prayer. 

The genuine exploration of one’s self as an individual is the greatest contribution you can make toward humanity and all life.  Ironically, inner self-reliance is what makes the whole of humanity stronger.

  – Unknown

So how do we discover what it is? We have to walk out the door of the safe comfortable space we have created for ourselves.  We have to walk down that path to the unknown. We have to enter the dark forest. You have to embark on the Hero’s journey. It is how you discover the vast resources that reside within you. A hero’s journey – finding the edge of your unknown forest, and entering into the heart of darkness.

What do you find there? You explore the caves of the past and you wake up to the dreams of the future. You let go of the life of existence, of “go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch TV, go to bed and repeat over and over again”.  The journey is an individual one, and each persons journey is different.  We have to go within and listen to what our own truth is.  Some walks you have to take alone.  Otherwise your truth, your inner voice gets drowned out by others.

The hero journey is inside of you; tear off the veils and open the mystery of your self.

 –   Joseph Campbell

Traveling down into the depths of the abyss we recover treasures of life. We recover the dreams we let die.  Se see that the stories that we have told ourselves about past hurts are not entirely true. We become excavator’s and dig up the bones of the past.  We let the past blow away like dust on the winds of healing. We see that most of the problems in our life have been mirrors being held up to us.  Most of the time, we were too blind or too scared to acknowledge the truth. By exploring the darkness we become enlightened.

The fatal mistake is waiting for life’s circumstances to be right before we begin.  Simply begin with your heart, look deeply into it and trust what you feel.  Practice knowing and you will know.

  – Hugh Prather

We become curious, our mind opens up to new ideas. Changes begin as we see new worlds to explore that have lain beneath the normalcy of our past life. We see possibilities instead of complications. We wonder. We release. We transform. We heal and become whole for the first time.  We have to enter the forest and break away, to walk the hero’s path.

We realize that although we were damaged, we survived and that makes us dangerous. Because we now know how to not only survive, we know how to become whole again. We become both a mentor and a teacher for ourselves.

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

  – Rumi

Being a mentor to oneself with love, light, grace, and compassion. Being a teacher to yourself with rage, darkness, fear, and judgment. We are both.  Both are required for the heroes journey. Speaking love to overcome rage,.  Speaking light to overcome darkness.  Speaking grace to overcome fear.  Speaking compassion to overcome judgment.

I guess that’s the thing about a hero’s journey. You might not start out a hero, and you might not even come back that way. But you change, which is the same as everything changing. The journey changes you, whether or not you know it, and whether or not you want it to.

  – Kami Garcia

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What Barriers To Love Are Inside Of Me?

Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” As I learned to love myself, my relationship with everyone changed. 

Loving myself lead to a clarity of my mind and heart. It gave me the courage to say “no more” hiding behind the masks. To say “no more” living in fear of what others will think of me. To say “yes” to me! The heavy armor I had built around me to protect me was in fact made of fear and stress. As I dropped it all behind me, I was left floating free in joy and freedom.  I learned that I must be the ultimate believer in myself first.

I knew in my bones why I was here on earth. I may not always be clear on what to do next, but I am clear as crystal as to where I am going. Clarity of mind is how you find purpose in life. It in turn is linked to clarity of passion, which is the fire of your soul to fulfill your purpose.

I believe that when we tear down the barriers we have built against loving ourselves, that we dispel the veils of illusion that obscure the direction of our life path. Love is an energy that engages us in life in a whole new way. Maya Angelou said, “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”

Life is about breaking our own limitations. It is about outgrowing who we were. It is about living our lives, by outgrowing ourselves over and over. It is about being curious and opening doors and finding new paths to explore.

Sending Love Wherever It Is Needed

We all have those days.  The days when nothing is seeming to go the way you planned.  That day when every mistake you made in the past year, shows up on your desk within 5 minutes of your sitting down.  Those days when you feel that the very idea of being able to control anything in your life, is life’s great joke on you.

“Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all, or by having everything happen at once”  – Paulo Coelho

If you could see what was being hidden in each of our lives, I think that you would be more loving to one another.  There is a video that was done, where little thought bubbles come up as the camera goes down the halls and elevators in a hospital.    Someone is saying goodbye to their dying father.  One man was just told the tumor was benign, while another was told he has cancer.  An elderly woman with oxygen has been waiting for a heart transplant for 69 days.  An exhausted nurse is at the end of a 12 hour shift.  “

Those are the days when you need someone to hug you and say, “You are Good Enough.  You are Capable of Handling this.  You are Important.  You are more than Worthy.  You are LOVED.  You are NOT ALONE.”  These are the days that you need all of the light and love that the world can send you.  What you have to remember, is that at this very moment, someone in the world is either sending you that love, or is in need of you to send that love.

“Could a greater miracle take place, than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” – Henry David Thoreau

It is when you are living your life from the place of passion and purpose, that you shine the brightest.  Knowing that your deepest dreams can be reached.  It is when you take that deep breath, and just let the emotions flow out of you, that you can reset yourself.  It is hard to be loving and empathetic when you are in survival mode.  You need to give yourself the oxygen mask, reset your emotions and then help others.  Find that spark inside of you, and let it shine first for you.  Then shine it for others to help them find theirs.

Recently driving into work, I was playing a CD with healing sounds.  A friend of mine knew that I have been having some health issues, and thought it might help.  So I purchased it and have been playing it all week.

I realized that every area in almost everyone’s life right now is undergoing some issues.  Work layoffs; health issues; injustices in life, and just watching the news can make you a  little stressed out about how everything is in a negative place right now.

Writing these posts and finding the “good news” articles and videos is what keeps my feet walking down my path of transformation.  It is keeping me sane.  It is why I write, and why I want to share what I find with all of the other LemonadeMakers out there.

“Remember . . .  the entrance to the sanctuary is within you”  – Rumi

Then you add in everything negative happening with the war in Ukraine, fighting in politics between the parties, terrorists’ attacks; the workplace and school shootings, countries at war within their own borders, or threatening to make war on other countries – it can all feel overwhelming.

None of these problems have easy solutions.  I think that we are all being called by the Divine to wake up.  To be the love and light that the world needs to heal.  We all need to heal in some way.

“Spread love everywhere you go.  Let no one ever come to you with leaving happier”  –  Mother Teresa

When you lift someone else up, it automatically lifts you up.  As the saying goes, “you rise by lifting others”.  It is not dependent on the other person appreciating your showing them love.  It is not dependent on it being reciprocated back to you.  It could even be ignored.  It will still lift both of you up.

This is because your showing love to others means that you are actively involved in the growth and support of another person.  Right now, you may not be in a place of being able to offer a refugee a place to stay.  You may not be in a place to donate money to help support someone in need.  But you are always in a place of showing love to someone.  Even if it is just a smile and a small prayer that love light their way forward.  You are always able to shine out the love and light to others.

Just Because My Path Is Different, Doesn’t Mean I’m Lost

It’s better to walk alone, than with a crowd going in the wrong direction.

 – Diane Grant

When we try to walk down another persons road, it leads to disillusionment and disappointment. That is because it isn’t “our” road. In the book “The Pilgrimage”, Paulo Coelho said that:

It is our decision to walk, that creates the road ahead of us.

 – Paulo Coelho

Trying to explain to someone what our personal truth is for the path we are walking, is like trying to explain rocket science to a baby.  It isn’t that the baby will never understand rocket science.  It is that the baby isn’t yet developed enough to understand.  We can’t explain our path to someone who isn’t yet at that same stage of their own truth.  It will only create misunderstandings, miscommunications, and lots of frustration.  Even we sometimes can’t put into words the necessity for why we have to do something.  We just know that we have to do it.  It has to do with our being conscious and open minded enough to realize when we are being directed.  It has to do with our acceptance of that direction, even when we don’t know why.

It takes courage to keep walking when the path is obscured by confusion.  TRUST.  BELIEVE.  And just keep walking.  The way will be revealed.

  – Sue Krebs

It is both being courageous and having curiosity, that keeps us forging ahead on the path. It is the journey itself, that grows us as a person. It is our attitude about what happens.  It molds us either for our greater good, or for living out life disappointed as a victim of circumstances and bad luck.  It is the difference between knowing what you need to do, and doing what needs to be done.  It is easy to get the knowledge, but the wisdom only comes from putting that knowledge into action.  It can’t just be “book learning”, it also has to be married to “learning in action”.

Getting lost along your path is part of finding the path you are meant to be on.

 – Robin S. Sharma

It has been said that it’s never about obtaining the “goal”. It is rather about who you need to become, to achieve the goal.  There are many different roads to walk. They go through many different landscapes.  It could be a forest path, with giant trees that shadow the land.  It could be through sand dunes and along beaches.  It could be a path of a river which sometimes meanders slowly, and other times rushes through rapids crushing you against the rocks, and then dumps you down a waterfall.  It could be the hot desert or the frozen tundra.  Each path will require different skillsets in order for you to become the master of your journey.  Different clothing, different shoes, different temperatures to be endured.  Different equipment from ropes, boats, sleds etc. . . .  It is always your choice of where you step, and which path(s) your choose.  If you don’t like the first road you chose, move over to a new one.

You must learn a new way to think before you can master a new way to be.

 – Marianne Williamson

It is always our decision to skip and sing our way along the yellow brick road, or to whine, complain, dragging our feet as we ask “are we there yet”?  Are you standing in your own truth?  Are you walking your own path?  Is your heart guiding you?  Look for the opportunities to better understand the journey.  Look for the helpers to guide us on our path.  The destination or outcome of our journey isn’t what is important.  It is who we are becoming, what we are actually doing that makes us successful.

I have always loved the saying, “It’s not the destination,… it’s the journey”. This is because the path we choose is our journey. It is where we live our life. It is all of life’s experiences. The good, bad, and the ugly. The messy parts, as well as the glorious adventures. We can see treasures every single day, if we just take the time to notice them.  Life goes on, it moves on.  It does it regardless of whether we are saying yes to our destiny or running the other way.  Since the path to happiness lies in the direction of our destiny, why not say yes?  Choose happiness.

Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

 – Garth Nix

Along the way, we live life out loud. We can choose to taste and savor the experiences that that journey brings to us. The more that we can reach out in happiness, joy, and just plain exuberance, the richer our life is. The destination is simply a road sign. A sign that we made it to “X”. Then we begin planning a new destination or goal. It’s all about the road we choose, the path we forge.  Who we are becoming.  What we reveal and release that is not truly who we are at heart.

By choosing the path, we choose the destination.

 –  Thomas Monson

Have you ever heard the saying, “you can’t go home again”?  The reason why is that while you were away, you changed.  You look at things differently.  You think that everything changed.  But in reality it was you who changed.  The house you lived in as a small child, suddenly looks much smaller – the house didn’t change size – but your way of looking at the world changed.  We are all far from who we once were, and we are still farther from whom we are growing into.  What is really scary is when you go home again, and see those who haven’t changed.  They haven’t even put on foot onto their path.  They are still stuck back five, ten, or twenty years ago with the same victimhood mentality.  They are caution signs to keep walking on your path.

One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.

 – Henry Miller

So cast off the bowlines. Sail out of the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds and see where they take you. Remember that you are always only one decision away from a totally different life. Embrace the journey and it will love you back.  Trust your journey, even when you don’t understand where destiny is taking you.  It could just be the biggest, most juiciest trip of your life.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.  It will not lead you astray.

  – 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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Illuminate The Path For Others So They Can See A Way Out Of Their Own Darkness

The world needs more poets like Maya Angelou.  Her writings are so inspirational.

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

When you shine your light, it means that you are expressing your soul’s purpose in being here.  You are living congruently with your soul’s purpose and your light shines out.  Don’t you just love being around people, when they are being their authentic selves?  That is true charisma and magnetism.  Maya Angelou was such a soul.  Desmond Tutu is another such soul.

When you listen to the news each morning or evening, it is hard to see the light through all of the darkness.  So much of the news is about the darkness in your community, with only the occasional story that reflects the everyday heroes among us.

“If you light a lamp for someone else, it will also brighten your path” – Buddhist Proverb

Then you all have those times when the darkness of the world has settled into your own living rooms.

You lose a loved one in death; you lose your job; your family falls apart and that special person that promised to love you forever, leaves you.  It could be that due to addictions, your spouse or child has turned into someone that you don’t recognize.  Despite everything you try, you can’t reach them.

So much darkness can spill across your threshold, like the floods during a storm, safety seems to be an unreachable, forgotten place.  You may feel that no matter how many candles you light, the darkness has taken over and you can’t see your way out of it.  The pain has spread from your hearts and buried your soul.

This is the time when you might believe that everything is finished.  That life is over for you. That it is no longer worth living.  And that is when a new beginning happens.  I love the analogy of photos and darkrooms.  The negative is developed in the dark.  Then when the chemicals have worked their magic, the photo can be seen.  Out of the darkness comes a beautiful picture.

Something new has been created.

“If you can’t be the light, be the match.  You may not be the candle to illuminate the room, but your spark can be the source of its light” – Unknown

For most of you, if you look backwards in your lives, you find that the most personal growth was created by the darkness that entered your life.  If you can remember that, when you are going through the “dark night of the soul”, then you know that even if life is giving you bushels of lemons at the moment, something beautiful is about to be born.  It is at this time that you need to remember these words:

In the words of another wise soul, Martin Luther King Jr start where you are.

“If you can’t fly, then run.  If you can’t run, then walk.  If you can’t walk, then crawl.  But whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward” – Martin Luther King Jr.

You have to keep moving forward into the light.  You have to find some way to keep the light of your heart alive.  Martin Luther King Jr. told us that only light can drive out the darkness, and only love can drive out the hate.  Your heart has both the light and the love you need contained within it, if you don’t barricade yourself from it.

So, when darkness seems to be the only thing you can see, look more closely.  LemonadeMakers are all around you.  We all have our heart lights shining out into the darkness, helping others to see their way out.

“Strong people don’t put others down, . . .  they lift them up” – Michael P Watson

You all have your own stories of the darkness that visited with you.  LemonadeMakers know your story, because we have been in your shoes.  We will help you back into the light, and you in turn will help someone else. That is what the light of love is all about.

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.

We Can Go Further Than We Think

Years ago, when I was young, I had opinions on what would I do, if “such and such” happened in my life. I think that when most of us hear of an experience that someone has, we think “well if that happened to me, this is what I would do”.

You might not agree with the decision that another has made, when your imagined scenario happens to them.  But you have no idea why they made the choice they made.  You don’t know all of the circumstances and limitations they were facing.

The lemons that life gives you are not supposed to paralyze you.  They are not supposed to make you bitter.  They are not supposed to make you give up on life.  They happen to help you dig down deep and discover what you are capable of.

“Who I am and what I am capable of doing has always managed to surprise me” – Jodi Picoult

When life does hand you lemons (your imagined scenario), and you are the one trying to make lemonade out of it, many times you come to a totally different decision.

There are many reasons for this. Each of life’s lemons come to you wrapped up in a different series of circumstances. You could look at multiple experiences of someone losing a loved one to violence, and you would find that each instance was handled in a different way.

While the label may be the same “man killed by random shooting”, the circumstances in each case tell their own unique story.

In 1995 Tariq a pizza delivery man was shot and killed by a 14-year-old gang member. Initially Azim, Tariq’s father could barely function. But he came to understand that the 14 yr. old boy named Tony who killed his son, was also a victim.

He felt called to forgive Tony and became friends with Tony’s grandfather and guardian. He started a foundation to help kids stop killing other kids. He began talking with kids in schools about the realities of that lifestyle and the importance of making right choices.

“From the onset, I saw victims on both ends of the gun. I will mourn Tariq’s death for the rest of my life. Now, however, my grief has been transformed into a powerful commitment to change. Change is urgently needed in a society where children kill children” – Azim, Tariq’s Father

He made lemonade out of his lemons. This foundation (http://tkf.org/) has grown into an organization of 13 full time staff members and 30 volunteers that mentor over 20,000 students each year. In the article I read, in 13 years they had touched eight million kids (this same foundation is now over 24 years old).

But I would bet that if you had asked him if this were the road he would take if someone killed his son, this is not the answer he would have given. His unknown road that he journeyed on revealed what kind of man he truly was. This is forgiveness in action. 

You are on a road, a journey to discover who you really are. What you are capable of becoming.

“No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path” – Buddha

Azim saved himself by walking the path of true forgiveness. He wanted to not only prevent other innocents from being killed, but he also wanted to save those other victims – “kids” becoming killers themselves. His difficult road has led to a beautiful destination – saving others.

What I have learned in life, is to hope that I can emulate the grace I see in others’ lives, as they grapple with life’s lemons. That until I find myself in that same hard place, I don’t really know what my decision will be. I do know that there is no turning back. So, each decision needs to be made in prayer and meditation, with that understanding.

The challenge is not just discovering who I am

but loving what I find.

What can you learn from the lemons in your own life? 

• To never allow someone to make you swallow your soul and make you feel small.
• To never dam up the words in your heart that are crying to be released. 
• Don’t apologize for your imperfections, you are perfectly imperfect.
• Don’t allow the darkness of others to cover up your light, share it with everyone instead.
• Trust your intuition, it is always right.
• Live a more courageous life. 

Who are you? 

A person of deep strength who keeps walking the path, knowing that new wonders are going to be revealed right around the next bend.

(“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.

Never Be Afraid To Try Something New, Turn The Page

I used to work for a company that owned hospitals and healthcare centers, doing accounting.  The majority partner in the business would have the same order for lunch, every single day.  A turkey sandwich with potato chips.  Every single day, he ate the same lunch.  They ordered lunch from TGIF, so it wasn’t like he didn’t have any other options.

I think many of us live in a rut.  Stuck in a groove we can’t get out of, whether it’s our job, family drama or the little frustrations of everyday life.    – Brian Pinkerton

I always wondered if he ate the same breakfast every morning, and the same dinner every evening.  He was definitely a man stuck in a rut.  Rush Limbaugh says that when you are in this experience, you “are out of contact with your own genius”.   You have had this happen in your life at some point and time.  The rut is a place of safety.   You may have had a fear of the unknown, so the rut was a place of safety, because it is always the same.  When you turn the page, who knows what might happen?

So what Zella is telling us, is that being in a rut, can actually be part of the journey – the point is once you recognize that you are stuck, then you can start going backwards, or forging ahead out of the rut.  That you can blaze your own trail off the beaten path to your destination. That you can escape the rut.  That you can get back in contact with your personal genius.  This is because living your life on purpose through your personal genius, is when you know that you are home.

Changing a behavior is like driving down an old, rutted, dirt road.  In order to get out of the rut and onto a new path, you need to jerk the wheel really hard.  If you don’t jerk the wheel hard enough, you’ll just bounce right back on the same, old, rutted path.  So for change to happen, hold on tight, jerk that wheel as hard as you can and get ready for a happy ride.  Change is just beyond, on the other side.    – Perfectharmonysolutions.com

When you listen to your personal genius, your souls voice, it leads you to amazing places.  You find yourself living and doing things that previously you would only read about.  Things that you could never imagine yourself doing. It is a conscious choice to listen to this voice that emanates from deep within.

We’ve all been there.  The stress of moving your household.  First packing then unpacking.  It is exhausting, bad breaking labor.  Or not?  Maybe it’s a chance to play outside the box of go, go, go and instead find the joy in the moment.  That is a totally inside job.

The choices that come from the outside are harder to deal with.  The tragedy knocks you down and makes you a victim.  Even the blessing, is a harder choice, because the blessing usually starts out like the tragedy. It becomes the blessing because you realize that you were stuck and needed your world turned upside down to shake you loose.  The result of the blessing is that you took life’s lemons and made them into lemonade.

Being stuck in the past is like walking forward with your back facing front.  You’ll always miss out on what’s in front of you.   –  thedailyquotes.com

How do you recognize that you are in a rut?  One sign is reliving the past.  It happens because you were comfortable there.  You may complain about it, but you make no movement to actually change it.  Another is repeating the past mistakes over and over again.  Why do you repeat patterns of mistakes?  Because you have convinced yourself that this time will be different.  My mom was married five times, and every single man she married, she met in the bar that she was working in.  One of the things that every single man had in common?  They were all alcoholics.  I remember telling her as a teenager, that maybe if she met men some place besides work, it might work out better?

You must learn a new way to think, before you can master a new way to be.   – Marianne Williamson

This is how you get out of the rut.  You don’t try to solve problems in your life with the same thinking that created them.  You step up and out of the rut.  And you begin blazing a new trail.  So instead of stepping backward into the rut, step forward into growth.  See where life is taking you.  Listen to the voice of your soul, and wake up.  Live your life with the intention to grow, live your life from your true reason and purpose for being here, and love your life with a passion that is on fire!

Keep Going. Everything You Need Will Be Provided With Divine Timing

Life is too short to think small.  If you think that something can be done, then it is too small.  If you think something is probably impossible, that is the goal to go for.  Not because the goal itself is the thing, but because of how trying to reach it will grow you.

If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.  Go for the moon shot kind of goals.

Moon shot goals involve others in coming together as a community to make the really big goals happen.  Moon shot goals help others to reach out past their own boundaries and limitations as they buy into helping you accomplish yours.

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.   – Sabine Mondestin

The hard work of the goal is in making the vision clear.  When you can see the minute detail, then you can make plans.  With plans come steps.  With steps, you begin moving into action.  You gain a tremendous feeling of confidence when this happens.  This confidence, grants you personal empowerment.  Empowerment fuels your passion to bring the goals into reality. This is how the miracles begin.

It is like the infinity circle in which one part feeds and fuels the next part, in an never ending cycle.  Clarity fuels the plans.  Then plans fuel the steps.

Then steps start the wheels moving and you get action.  Action gets you excited that stuff is finally happening.

Personal empowerment comes from actions taking place.  Personal empowerment in turn fuels passion.  Passion feeds back into clarity.  Clarity begins the whole process again.

This is because as the vision starts moving forward into implementation, you get more clarity.  Clarity starts new plans.  New plans lead to revised actions.  The whole cycle begins spinning again.

With engagement the divine one moves in with synchronicities and doors begin to open.  People show up, all to bring your goals into reality.  You are not meant to accomplish things by yourself.  But no one can help you, until you help yourself.

I used to extinguish under the weight of living, but one day, I reached into my chest, dusted off my courage, and asked myself, “where’s your fire?”  –   D. Antoinette Foy

Be strong about your goals, and flexible about your methods.  Be willing to try things you don’t think will work.  To try things that you have never done.  You learn by discovering what will work for you.

Has anyone ever tried you train you by having you watch them do the job?  They walk you through a program.  They tell you what your inputs should be.  You go back to your desk, and you can’t remember what to do.  Your notes don’t make any sense to you.

But when someone sits beside you, and guides you as you do the work, now it sinks in.  You learn by doing it yourself.  As you do the work, you have the space to think of the questions you need to ask to understand the process.  When you just learn the process you are just a cog in a machine. When you understand the process, now you can innovate.  Now you can teach it.

When you become visible, you take a huge risk.  Because not everyone is going to like you.  Some people are going to hate you, just because you are different.  There will be those people that will be mean and cruel.  That needs to be okay.  You need to understand that you are not here for everyone.

You are not here with your gifts for those who don’t want them.  You are here for those that do.

The only real difference between us, is that some of us have remembered why we are here.  Others are still asleep to their true purpose.   They don’t remember their divine inheritance.    They will find fault with what you are doing, without really understanding why it bothers them so much.  They act as a challenge to help you reach your highest potential.

If you are persistent, you will get it.  If you are consistent you will keep it.  – Unknown

Such an interesting quote.  Being persistent is how you learn something.  Have you ever listened to a two year old, asking “why”?  They are the most persistent creatures in the universe.  Persistence is how you learn.  Understanding comes from doing it consistently.

You literally sink the learning down into your bones.  I like to think of learning, as how you learned to ride a bike.  Most of us can ride a bike.

• But how many of us learned how to ride with no hands?
• Learned how to jump the bike over obstacles?
• Learned how to do a wheelie?

You were persistent enough to learn to ride, getting back on every time you fell.  But were you consistent enough to go past the basics and learn all of the tricks of riding a bike – did you become a master?

How do you let the amazing out?

• You get curious.
• You think, why not?
• You question, how come?
• You imagine, what if?
• You wonder, who can I collaborate with on this?

Curiosity is the compass that leads you to your purpose.  Your reason for being here now.

When you are tempted to give up, your breakthrough is probably just around the corner.  – Joyce Meyer

Then you work on your true inheritance, and accept that as you become masters on this earth, that your signature will become your autograph.

A signature is so much more than just a splash of ink across the paper.  A signature is style.  It is a “look”.  It is something that says who you are.  When you see the Nike symbol, what pops into your mind?  Nike is not just about shoes.

When you hear the Coca Cola jingle, “I’d like to teach the world to sing” how does it make you feel?  Coca Cola is more than just a drink.  That is what a signature is.

You have so much inside of your soul waiting to come out.  That is why you will risk becoming visible.  That is why you can’t think small.

Because some part of you deep inside knows how truly magnificent you really are.  Each of us is a thread in Gods tapestry.  Each of us has a part to play.  Each of us has to become visible, in order for the pattern to be seen.  Each of us has that special one of a kind signature that the world needs to see, feel, and hear.