When I read today’s message from the universe that is what came to my mind. How in our lives we have these experiences that happen and those experiences follow a wide range of ins and outs, overs and unders, and what emerges is the complex pattern that is us.

If we could stand back from the small view that we have of ourselves we would see the beauty that is us. But as humans we tend to get stuck in the story of the experience and let one of more of those experiences define who we are and what we are capable of becoming. We become the limitation of the experience.

If you only focused on a tiny piece of the lace twists and turn, it wouldn’t look like anything special. But if you stand back and take in the complete piece of lace, it is an amazing intricate piece of art.

I was in a deep discussion last night with another women, about an experience that she went through lately with another women. I commented that when I saw the nature of their relationship a year ago, I thought that at some point there would be a breaking of the friendship. It was something in the way the other women would look at her, that told me that she wasn’t coming from a healthy place. Sometimes we can’t see the lesson that is coming our way, not until it actually happens.

We were discussing how if you look in the mirror, who don’t really see yourself for who you are, but if you take a photo of yourself and look at it, then you can see yourself clearly. I asked her if she had looked at any video footage of them because I thought that if she did, she would see that look and now recognize what I was talking about. And she laughed because she had actually saw what I saw.

All of these experiences that teach us vital lessons are part of the fabric of the beautiful work of art that is us. Each decision, each relationship, each thing that happens creates another piece of the pattern. Without those twists and turns we would just be a formless pile of threads.

So don’t get caught up in what should have or what could have happened. Be grateful and thankful for each experience. Each of those twists and turns make you a victorious master of you,, and while sometimes it feels as though you are a pretzel you are an amazing piece of art!

If your personal purpose, professional purpose, and global purpose are not aligned, then you will have resistance. All three need to be congruent, running alongside each other in order for you to successfully accomplish your purpose. Just like the rowers in a race, the oars all need to be in unison to make any progress.

The stories that we adopted as children can show up in surprising places as an adult. I had an experience when I was a young child where I walked into my moms room and surprised her in bed with another man. Shortly thereafter my parents divorced. My story was that it wasn’t safe to be noticed or “seen”. If you drew attention to yourself bad things would happen. So every time I became successful in a job, I would sabotage that job and run away to a new one. It took me years of work to finally put all of the pieces together and figure out why I was doing this.

We all have these variations of stories that we cling to, because they are known and our ego tells us they keep us safe. Some are from what was a major event to a child, and some are from something so minor that as an adult it astounds us that we have this belief formed out of misconceptions and the misunderstanding of what was happening around us. Some are just mantra’s that we heard as children that formed a deep seated belief internally that we may not even realize that we have.

What I know is that if we ask the question and just sit with it, surprising beliefs and thoughts will surface. And if we keep sitting with it asking why, and going deeper into the well, we will discover the incongruency and once we do, we can release that emergency brake and go full speed ahead to our destination.

They say that someone who has made for themselves one million dollars, could lose it, be put down in the middle of any unknown town in the U.S. with one dollar in their pocket and in a matter of time they would be a millionaire again.

It is only the first time we do something that we seem to try and fail and struggle. Once we understand, everything changes. There is an old Persian proverb, “once the puzzle is complete, it looks easy”. When you have done anything for yourself (not necessarily by yourself) then you can recreate that something again.

So once we have that knowledge and inner wisdom on how to apply it, you know how the puzzle pieces fit together and the picture that they make. You realize at some point in your journey that you can use those same skills, knowledge and wisdom to achieve and attain whatever you want – you have the ability to make a key to open any door.

That is what I believe he is talking about – realizing that you have always had the ability to make the key for any door that you choose to open – now that is priceless.

This is awesome, because it says under the music of your dream, that you know like you know, like you know, that your dream is going to come true. You aren’t pushing it to happen and neither are you just sitting on your hands saying, “Oh well if it is meant to be it will just happen.

What you are doing is tilling the soil, planting the seeds, weeding and watering and watching it grow with joy. Because you know that if you plant the seed and take care of it as it grows, that it will grow into what it is supposed to be. You don’t make it grow, you just nurture and provide the best growing conditions that are within your power, and trust in the universal laws that say it will grow into what was planted.

The wonderful things about gardens is that many times when a seed doesn’t germinate for this growing season you go outside the next one and there is a plant from the seeds that were planted last year. Sometimes it takes some time for the right conditions to germinate the seed. What dreams have you planted and forgotten about have come true? What dreams are you growing?

We don’t even recognize most of the assumptions that we have because they are unconscious belief patterns that are running like computer programs behind the scene. But once in awhile, something happens that puts them out in the open.

I had an unconscious belief pattern that nothing “bad” would happen to my family. The bad being the kind of tragedy that happens and puts you in the news. That I could just keep improving on myself and that was good enough. Then my nephew Carl was murdered and that unconscious belief was brought out into the open. I realized that I had a responsibility, a global purpose to fulfill in helping to make communities that were truly large families that helped each other. That collaborated together to accomplish great things, to solve the social ills of not only their own town, but to then spread out to other towns.

I realized that I couldn’t continue to play small. That I had to grow myself more than what I ever thought was possible, to stretch out my boundaries. Even though Carl’s loss still hurts, he taught me that until all of us are safe to take a shortcut through the park, I have work to do. That it is not about me growing just myself, it is about me making those big changes in my life, and passionately sharing with one more person who then makes those same life altering changes, and they passionately share with one more person, and so on. Pebble by pebble, we can change the world. And so it is.

When I am creating from a space of ease and grace there is no resistance. It doesn’t mean that life is always easy with everything flowing into place, or that life is never hard. It just means that I am not painting myself into any corners, or putting myself into a self created prison.

Any resistance is a sure sign that I am not on purpose with something in my life. When this happens I go back to the foundation, which is my personal life. If my foundation isn’t correct, it will mess up my professional life and my global purpose. My professional life is based on a balanced personal life and fuels my global purpose. In other words, if my personal life is screwed up, it follows that everything else I do comes from trying (unsuccessfully) to escape a self created prison (my personal life).

When my personal life is on purpose, it causes my professional life to be on purpose. When what I try to create comes from being in touch with my life’s purpose it always flows strong from that foundation. A successful professional life is what creates fuel to achieve my global purpose and which in turn fuels me to have a successful personal and professional life. I believe that it is absolutely all connected.

Whenever something is wrong in any part of my life, I go “back to the beginning” (one of my favorite quotes from Princess Bride from Inigo Montoya – since I started from the comic strip it is only fair to end with a great fantasy movie) and look to see if I am coming from the adrenalin lifestyle and if so, I need to go back to basics. Take a deep oxytocin breath or two or three, and look to see where I have allowed drama and static back into my life. I pull those cords, release the tension and rebalance back to a state of ease and grace.

That is the really cool thing about the essence of our character, once we realize how the trap is created, we can refuse to enter the self created prison cell in the first place. And we can end with the GI Joe quote, “knowing is half the battle”.

I was watching a movie the other day, one of the Die Hard movies with Bruce Willis and there was a line in the movie that has really stuck with me. They were talking about what makes a hero. Now I can’t quote verbatim what the Bruce Willis character said, but the gist of it for me was that a hero was simply someone who couldn’t look the other way. It was the guy who simply had to step in, even when they knew it would mean trouble for them, even though they didn’t want to get involved. Deep down there was something in their make up, that made them “that guy”.

Have you seen those videos they post online where they create situations in places like a diner, where someone is behaving badly to see what those around them will do? There was one I saw last week where the waitress (actress that really is transgender) was transgender and this customer (actor) was giving her a bad time, saying some really mean disgusting things. There was another customer sitting beside him that was leaving just as he started giving her a bad time. So he sits back down and tells the guy to leave; to leave her alone, and doesn’t leave until the actor does. When they interviewed him later, he had somewhere he had to go, and it made him late, but he couldn’t let that guy continue to humiliate and harass the waitress. He didn’t advocate that he was for or against anything, just that he believed that we all have the freedom of choice and we shouldn’t just others on their choices. He was “that guy”.

I believe that we can all be “that guy”. I don’t think that it is something that we are born with or without. It is love for others. It really does depend on what you love. For our child we will move mountains to help, save, and protect them. When we take that same love, and liberally spread it out to anyone we come in contact with, then we become “that guy”. As I always tell my husband, we have to stop and help because that could be me, or your son, or your daughter that needs help. Wouldn’t you want someone to stop and help your mom, or wife or daughter? If so, shouldn’t you? It all depends on what you love.

Most of us tend to get overtaken by our feelings and reactions to the negative thoughts. We believe that someone or something else is causing us to be unhappy, Instead of giving away our power to be happy to another person or possession or belief, we have the power within ourselves to change the negative thoughts.

Instead of resisting the negative thought, what we need to do is welcome the thought with a vibration of nonattachment. Just open the door and say hello to the thought, completely neutral. When we do this we are retraining our hypothalamus that just because I have a negative thought doesn’t mean I have to go down into negative energy. I can remain in ease and nonattachment, and just allow the thought to go on its way. No harm, no foul.

I think that this is what Guy Finley is talking about, from a woman’s point of view. I can’t change what others do or say. The only thing in my power is my reaction. I can just welcome the thought in and let it go on its way, with no drama, no story, that is what is in my power and in your power. Because my reaction in any other way just puts negativity into my life. I am essentially punishing myself for something that I had no control over – what someone else did or thought or didn’t do or think. How useless is that?

It is in my power live a life of ease and grace, and if you really think about it, if someone is trying to hurt me, isn’t that the best revenge? No reaction, just me being happy

A Buddhist saying “There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to Truth: not going all the way, and not starting.

So when you come to those inflection points in your life, take a moment to “pick up the fork” and go down the road to truth that is you – even if you are making your own road as you go along.

I have found this to be true even when someone lashes out at me because of something that they are going through. There has always been information that I needed.

I believe that I can learn from the mistakes that others make of what not to do, or how not to handle a similar crisis in my life – I don’t have to touch the fire to know it will burn – I can learn from not only my mistakes but those of others too.

So dig through the hurt and find the pearls of wisdom and reject the rest and know that if they could have said it in a better way they would have. They just didn’t know how to say it any better through their own hurt and pain.

Watch the kids as they leave the ride and you see that they mastered their fear as they rush to get back in line, laughing and telling each other about the rush they had – the fear changed from adversity to adventure.

What if every time you are afraid and your stomach is lurching, you remember the exhilaration of riding the roller coaster for the first time and the rush you felt as it ended and you ran to do it again?

What if you faced every fear in your life as a great adventure, knowing that you will safely come to a stop at the end and be ready for the next thrill?

Instead of resisting or even permitting fear to be part of your life, what if you value it and enjoy it?

If you can learn to really embrace your fear like a loved one that you haven’t seen in a long time, then you can become the master of forward movement.

There comes into our lives these moments, when our passion cries out for expression, when we have the opportunity to stand up for what we want, how we want our world to be, to be the hero of the moment. We look through the bars of protection that we ourselves have created and we wonder “what if?”

The truth is that everyone is afraid; that everyone has a cage where they have hidden their fragile secrets. When you are brave enough to own your moment, acknowledge the fear and do it anyway, you are giving everyone else a gift that says, “see the real me”. Your authenticity is a mixture of strength and vulnerability, it is the whole you, not just the strength part of you that you normally project, but all of you.

What if instead of protecting our reputation, we created a new one? What if instead of holding back we took a step forward and shared the passion hidden inside?