The Lost Years on Social Media

 

It was very strange as I slowly peeled myself away from social media. It wasn't as if one day I decided to stop creating my world set by the algorithms of Facebook and Twitter. I found myself contemplating the efficacy of my words. Were my words really changing the hearts of people who read them? I would write a post and then ask myself, "Is the post really going to make a difference in this world, today?" Most of the time I found myself saying, no. So begun my disengagement with social media.

But in order to be fair and honest, I will have to admit I had a little push from the Universe. 

Back in 2016, I had just published Broken Girl and was ready to put my career in high-gear. Broken Girl was like nothing I had published before. It was a dark and gritty book. It was the one book that took the most out of me writing it, and yet, I believe it is my best work to date. 

Around that time my aunt contacted me, her health was starting to decline and she asked for my help.  She was 83 years old. She never married and didn't have any children. It was just her and her dog as she was slipping into the mild to moderate stage of Dementia. Now, if I knew then what I know now, there is a part of me that wonders if I would have taken such a massive role in her life. But, the truth is, she didn't have anyone else. Too many bridges burned, and all the people she called friends had all transcended before her. My aunt needed someone and I was the next in line.

Days sailed by, my career hobbled on, and the more dependent she became on me, the less time I had to spend working on my writing career. It was hard to log into Facebook and write positive posts blooming with inspirational words when I was drowning in a very hard, very lonely, and at times an overwhelming resentment-filled mental state of mind. 

I had my close friends and family to lean on, but when it came to logging into Facebook and searching for the virtual pats on the back or the warm and fuzzy love of swelling hearts or tear-filled emojis it fell pretty flat for me. Truthfully, I didn't want to be another broken voice in the sea of brokenness on Facebook. Quite frankly, I couldn't find enough gumption to post any words of inspiration while I was submerged in the anger and frustration of having my life hijacked by my aunt's illness. So, I posted sporadically until I pretty much stopped posting all together. 

At first, it was hard disconnecting from something that had become an addiction to me. Social media was my drug and the "thumbs-up" and comments became my hit. Facebook did exactly what it was designed to do, keep me coming back for more. Becoming addicted to social media was insidious, and fighting the addiction had become the uphill battle with my self-confidence.

I watched the writing world roll on without me. The fear of becoming irrelevant was real. Seeing my fellow authors publish and shine in the light of productivity was excruciating. Don't get me wrong, I wanted them to succeed. I loved these very talented and creative people. Yet, seeing them keep publishing and producing, signings and sales made me long for a different path. They were moving on and I was stuck in repetitive stories of yester-year and trauma.

Dementia is a bitch. It slowly steals the victims memory in the most cruel way. But it doesn't just take away memories, it confuses, and makes its victim scared. It tricks the mind into not eating, obliterates short-term memory and eventually riddles its host with paranoia and fear. So as my aunt worsened, I had to step into her life and take over more and more of her daily needs. Essentially, her life became mine. 

While I hoped the Meta-verse of Facebook missed me, it didn't. The personal vibe of Facebook was fickle, if I didn't interact with people, I simply got lost in the shuffling algorithm and irrelevancy became my new normal. It was like I fell off the face of the earth and nobody noticed. Book sales dried up and the people who validated me months early stopped. 

Suddenly, I found myself wondering if I'd ever publish again.  I kept writing when I could steal some time, and find the mental strength. In the last handful of years I finished a couple of manuscripts and tucked them away in folders on my computer. However, the thought of putting another book out became almost impossible. Self-doubt, the impossible pulse of judgment and the ever-growing cancel culture on social media had me wondering if people would accept any of the future books I would publish.

Then cue a world wide pandemic. My aunt survived eleven months of the new order of things. She continued to decline, falling and emergency room visits, arguments of who came to see her, the "good, sweet Gretchen" or the "terrible, ugly Gretchen." Her ability to recall was failing drastically, and I was worried on how I was going to get this very proud, independent woman to leave her house for a different normal. I promised myself that if she fell again, I was going to have to put her into a home and health care facility, basically a cold, small room in a house shared with others suffering from Dementia. I harbored a lot of guilt because I promised her that I would do everything in my power to keep her in her home. 

Truthfully, I wish I never promised anything of the sort. It's easy to come up with answers to promises when you didn't make them. Easy to write-off a woman who treated strangers better than her own flesh and blood. But I couldn't. I am not wired that way. I can't walk away from someone who needs me. I will exhaust all options, and do what I can to help, even if it was stripping every little morsel of peace from who I was. I wasn't mentally prepared for the amount of bandwidth she took. 

I felt weak minded, I felt like an impostor who, just months before told people to always seek love in the midst of hate. Truth is, I was filling with hate and anger. I was burned out and losing who I was. Then in December of 2020 I found my aunt on the floor, she had fallen again. This time she cracked her ribs. The world was in the deep throws of the Covid19 and my aunt had to go to the hospital, alone. I couldn't go with her. For the first time, she wouldn't have her advocate with her. 

A couple weeks went by, her mental state was deteriorating while trying to recuperate in the hospital. They said she was stable enough to go to a SNF, (Skilled Nursing Facility), the only problem, there weren't any beds available in the whole state of California. I did my research, looking for assisted living facilities, hoping that she'd be okay going from a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house where she lived alone, to a shared room in someone else's house with perfect strangers. It was depressing to see what places she could afford to go. This was going to be the place she'd finish out her life, and most of them were not what she was accustom to, living alone. 

A couple days later, the sky opened up and the social worker called me--they have a bed in a SNF a couple hours away. I agreed to send her there. As long as she was safe, I could keep looking for a place to move her into. I never told her that she wouldn't be going back to her home. She had lived alone for most of her life. Just auntie and her animals. 

When the mind is struggling to recall the past, you are given permission to tell little white lies. I kept telling her she'd be home soon. It wouldn't be long before she was reunited with her dog, Cinnamon. My husband and I went up to see her, took her pup and showed her through the window that we were keeping her dog safe. 

Well, all hell broke loose. She wasn't in the SNF for very long before I started getting recorded phone calls about the cases of Covid19 in the facility. The calls would tell me the amount of patients and workers who had the virus. Every day the numbers rose on the recorded call. "5 patients and 6 employees have tested positive for Covid19." It was so fast that I didn't even have time to react. Then, a call came in from the facility, I answered expecting to hear the recorded voice tell me how many more cases they had, but instead it was a real person, she was calling to tell me that my aunt had tested positive for the virus. My heart dropped. I failed her. I wasn't able to get her out of there in time. 

For most of her life, my aunt was a heavy smoker. She did quit twenty years ago, but her addiction had made its mark, it stole her ability to breathe on her own. She had COPD, and in the last ten years of her life, she was on oxygen 24/7. Now my fears were realized, she tested positive for Covid19. 

It was so hard, the guilt was almost unbearable. She was two hours away from me and I spent hours back and forth on the phone. I tried to talk to her, talk to the doctors, figure out how to make her comfortable, while fighting Covid19 with COPD amidst the cruelty of Dementia. They'd tell me she was doing well and sent her back to the SNF, then they'd call again and tell me she wasn't doing okay and that they took her back to the hospital. She was stable one minute and acute the next. 

On January 18th, 2021, she succumbed to the virus, less than three weeks in the facility. I was able to talk to her over the phone. Even though she was unconscious, even though she was never going to wake up again, I needed to tell her that I loved her and that she won't have to suffer any longer. She died that evening with no family around her, just the nurse who I spoke to who said she stayed with my aunt until she took her last breath. It's strange when people say, you come into this world alone, and you leave the same way. For my aunt, it was literally true. 

It's been over a year since she died. I still haven't really dealt with the trauma of taking care of someone with Dementia. And even though Covid19 took her sooner than Dementia, I will say, I believe Dementia would have been a much more painful way for her to transcend this life. She was a prideful woman who was extremely intelligent, and her mind had slipped away.

There are things I wish I would have told her. Stories I wish weren't lost in the abyss of nothingness, the black hole of Dementia. I wish family relationships could have been mended for the people left behind. 

Even sixteen months later, I'm still trying to figure out my place in this world; still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Every once in a while I start looking at how to get my groove back in the book world. Most days, I tell myself, it has sailed on. I keep the hope that one day, when that ship comes back around there will be room on it for me and my stories. 

With Love and Compassion,

Gretchen 

CHANGE IS INEVITABLE …

Change isn’t always bad. Sure, we hope traditions will survive the tides of change. We are creatures of habit, and in being habitual, we are taught that our traditions define a very important piece of who we are.

But what defines us when traditions fall to the waist side of those who don’t hold it in the same esteem? Do we decide to hate the game, throw a fit, and take our ball home or do we find something to anchor our old traditions with their new doctrine of thinking?

We cling so tightly to what was that we don’t see what can be. Grow or perish, sink or swim, flourish or shrivel up,  we can’t expand our experiences if we keep embracing stagnancy. We must move, we must grow, we must move forward. WE MUST CHANGE, IT’S INEVITABLE!

If I have to be the one to break the news, so be it …  STAGNANCY ISN’T AN OPTION. You must bend and sway or you will live your entire life miserable. And who wants that? (put your hand down!) Nobody in their right mind says, “Ummm, I think I wanna be miserable today.”  At least, nobody, I know. When you spend your time looking back at what was, you will end up tripping over what can be.

Listen, take it from me, the de la O’s have had some pretty hard couple of months. My family hasn’t lived in stagnancy at all. We’ve endured so much pain and suffering, we’ve lost and found only to lose again. It doesn’t matter at this point what happened or what is still happening, what matters at this point is what we decide to do with what keeps showing up in our lives. It’s picking up what was and seeing how we can take the part that matters to us and leave the rest behind.  And even though it seems like our lives are spiraling out of control, we have to find the parts that serve our highest and best good. We have to place our feet on the floor and take that first step into the day. It’s hard, believe me, I know. But we have to give it a shot. Change is inevitable.

Things fall away, new things show up, it’s uncomfortable, it’s irritating, it’s life. In the last couple of months, I haven’t given thanks for the day the Universe has given me. I’m embarrassed to say, I’ve been asking what next, God? What are you throwing my way today, Universe? More death? Pain? Suffering? Chaos? And I’d be damned because that shit I was asking for kept showin’ up! More chaos, more pain, suffering, and yes, even death showed up in my life. I spent so much time cowering to the idea that some “other shoe” was going to drop that I’ve been living in the effect of my thinking instead of being the creator of my thought.

I’ve allowed the conditional thinking of yesterday paint today’s landscape. I’ve been so conditioned by events in my life that I totally forgot that I have a choice. I can choose my reaction. I get to choose the way I react to life. Sure bad things are going to happen, I’m gonna struggle through events, and yeah, I’m going to lose people and things I love. It’s life, and being my life I have to choose how I react. It’s my life and I’m responsible for it. Today, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I am strong enough to take responsibility for my life again.

With LOVE and COMPASSION,

Gretchen de la O

Take Responsibility

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

It’s time we all took responsibility for our actions. It time to stop dodging behind the words and actions of others. Stop hiding behind the illusion that our lives are more important than anyone else’s. It’s not. 

The laws of nature apply to everyone equally. There aren’t special circumstances for someone because they seem to have everything fall into their laps or they’re better or worse off than you. Nature doesn’t have discretion, it can’t choose one thing over another, it is bound by scientific law. It doesn’t have volition. 

Nature is a producer, it gives to whatever it is asked to give. We can’t plant an oak tree and have a redwood sprout. That would be against all the laws of nature. We can’t plant a tomato plant and dictate to nature how many branches, leaves, or tomatoes it’s going to produce, that’s nature’s job. Our part was planting the tomato seed. 

When we plant a calla lily, the soil, water, and sun conspire with the laws of nature to help that calla lily grow to its full potential. The only thing it is subject to is its environment--other than that the calla lily is bound by its truth. 

Same for all living things, including human beings. We are bound by the laws of nature. We are subject to our environment, and we will produce exactly what the laws of nature dictate. And if our environment isn’t healthy, everything that is conspiring for our highest and best good will produce the best of what it can in our unhealthy environment. And when I speak of environment, it isn’t limited to the physical. Our environment also includes our minds. 

We are thinking, independent, viable, beings with the capacity to make decisions based beyond our intuition. We aren’t subject to instinct, (although there are times instinct will rule over volition). 

We were born to make manifest the magnificence of our lives. If we never choose to take responsibility for our actions, we will live our entire lives subject to our environment. This is where we can use the laws of nature to create our heaven or hell. 

When we make the decision to rise to the occasion instead of kneeling to the condition, we put into motion the law of cause and effect and the law of nature must obey. Nature can’t play favorites, it doesn’t look at a situation with a consciousness, that’s a human trait. Just think of nature as the, yes man, it can only produce what is asked of it. It can't decide to help one person and neglect another. Nature works for all in the same way.

Our actions dictate our experiences, and our thinking creates the perfect soil to plant our seeds of love or hate, compassion or contempt, prosperity or poverty, success or failure, and our happiness or sadness. Truthfully, the only thing we can control is our reaction to the outcome. Other than that, we can’t control how others react, we can’t stop the world from suffering, and we can’t continue blaming someone else for our life and expect it to change. We want our lives to change, we have to look within and see where we keep stumbling. What old belief or idea that keeps us bound to the same crappy experiences. 

We have to dive deep into the uncomfortable, find that old crappy belief and uproot it. Thrust our hands into the soil of our lives, let the dirt get under our fingernails while we discover if the soil in our consciousness is the right type. If it isn’t, we must go out and get the right soil. Nobody is going to bring it to us, we have to work for what we want. PERIOD. Everyone is subject to the same laws. 

Maybe you’ll find a book that leads you to you, catch a lecture that empowers you, surround yourself with positive people who lift you up. Let go of those ideas that don’t serve your highest and best good, anymore. 

Listen, nobody can save you, you have to be the one to decide to rise up. You must determine if you’re done or not. Nobody can fix you. They can show you, they can give you the tools, but it’s up to you to build a better life or not. It’s an inside job, a change of consciousness, a makeover of your thinking, and a lot of work. 

Life is never stagnant, you can’t learn something new then think that you’ll master it because you did it once. You have to keep working on it, honing your skills, practice it until it becomes automatic, and even then, you will have to keep doing it so you don’t get rusty. Same with your thinking, same with your life--you must keep changing your consciousness so you can create a better life for yourself. Even if your life appears perfect, you must continue to work at that appeared perfection. 

So how do we do it?

It’s individual for each of us, but one thing I know for sure is to start seeing the positive in the world, focus on the good, let the rest go. Stop embracing the negative in the world, stop feeding the beast of judgment, hate, anger, and indifference. Be honest, and embrace your grace. Take responsibility for your actions and life. 

If you messed up, stand up admit it, and move beyond it. You don’t have to become yesterday’s mistakes by admitting them, and sure, you might be uncomfortable for some time, but in the long run, you will strengthen your consciousness and by strengthening your consciousness you’ll begin to see your life change for the better. You’ll have deeper more quality relationships, and you’ll experience your inner truth. You’ll be reminded every day that you are God’s greatest gift to this world. Because you are! You are the miracle the universe produced. A million to one miracle. 

Take today into your heart, sit silently for a couple of minutes and see what comes to the surface, that will be the first thing to look at and decide if this idea is serving your highest and best good or enslaving you to a life of discontent and pain. If it isn’t serving your highest and best good, come up with the opposite and start thinking upon that. You’ll be surprised how fast your mind can replace a negative condition with a positive way of life. 

Soon you'll discover that beneath what appears isn't what is. You are you, and you are enough, it's time to start believing in yourself again! 

With LOVE and COMPASSION, 
Gretchen de la O

STOP TALKING ... START LISTENING ... AND REPEAT AFTER ME!

We all face obstacles, moments where we wonder, "How am I going to survive this?"

We struggle to find out why, we fight for answers, and sometimes we just decide to give up. We come from the "flight or fight" mentality because it's all we know.

We all have those experiences where we either come out swinging or we bury our heads in the sands of denial. It's human nature, it's the way we've been conditioned.

It's hard to face criticism for things we wish would go away. It's hard to hear the truth when we want it to be false. And a lot of us become fatalists when we let our minds wonder into the future that hasn't even happened yet. That's right, we project an outcome before the event even takes place.

Why?

Why??

and

Why???

Because it's easier to kneel to the condition than to rise to the occasion. WE THINK, it's easier to expect pain instead of healing, chaos instead of peace, poverty instead of prosperity, failure instead of success.

We let the world's conditions dictate our outcome.

We are not the world's conditions, We are not our neighbor's story.

Our lives aren't written in permanent ink!

We are ALWAYS changing, events and experiences are never the same, and just because history has dictated certain outcomes in other people's experiences, doesn't mean that's the end-all-be-all story of our lives!!

People bend perceptions and expectations all the time. Things evolve and change because we do. Technology changes and we discover new and inventive ways to create, produce, and execute better more efficient ways of doing things.

There are so many moments in this life where we bend perceptions and make them a reality. Where facts that we thought were law become the stepping stones to pushing precedence and limited thinking.  That's right, just because a precedence has been set doesn't mean that's the be-all-end-all. It never is.

It's time we stop saying we've lost the race before it's even started. Stop looking at the hare and thinking because it has long strong legs it's going to win the race. <---we already="" how="" know="" out.="" span="" story="" that="" turned="">

We aren't limited by what has happened. We aren't the outcome of what appears to be. We are exactly what we decide we are going to be. It's time to let go of what the world thinks we are and start embracing the Truth of who we are!

First Person POV Statement....

(read aloud if you need to)

**************************

I am a mighty moving force. I deserve all the good, all the grace, and all the love waiting on my discovery. I am a gift living in the present. I am the miracle the universe produced and keeps producing with every breath I take.

I let go of my old ideas and embrace my new thinking today! I release the fear, guilt, pain, shame, and anger that doesn't serve who I am.

Today I let love, peace, health, abundance, compassion, happiness, gratitude, and grace fill my cup until it's running over. Today I recognize that I am a blessing not only in my life but in the lives of everyone I come in contact.

The goodness within me greets the goodness within everyone I interact with today.

I am worthy of living a positive life.

I am worthy.

*****************

You are worthy! You are the biggest gift to this world, no matter your past mistakes or accomplishments.

Today, the world is blessed to have you in it! Remember that.

With LOVE and COMPASSION,

Gretchen.

The Biggest Realization Yet!

THE BIGGEST REALIZATION YET!

When will you realize that you're more powerful than you give yourself credit for?

Ask yourself: How long will it take of living in the fear, chaos, discontent, worry, anxiety, pain, guilt, shame, and/or suffering before I realize I have the power to change my experience? A week, a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime?

It doesn't have to take a lifetime to learn how to harness your inner power. You don't have to remain a victim of circumstances anymore! There is a power, an energy, a vital-ness that exists in the core of who you are. As sturdy and constant as the beating of your heart, as reliable as the breaths in which continue to fill your lungs, this energy, power, and presence is the source of what animates you--gives you the ability to rise above adversity, and it's limitless.

The problem lies within your use of it. Your acceptance of it, your own ability to harness it in the most useful way. You get caught up in the world's definition of what everybody thinks you should be--you lose sight of what you know about yourself. You have forgotten what you've come into this world already possessing. You've been conditioned to believe you are limited, you are conditional, you aren't strong enough to overcome the pain in your life.

What you fail to remember is that you are a mighty moving force in the world. You are the million to one miracle of life. You are here because you have life to live, things to experience, a purpose to fulfill, and a consciousness to expand and foster.

It isn't easy to rise above the discontent that swirls around you--God, it's one of the most difficult things to do. But you can't beg for peace while you keep living in chaos. You can't have abundance while you keep clinging to an impoverished type of thinking. I'm not bashing people whom are struggling financially. I understand the struggle, every day. But, if you want a richer life, filled with love, peace, joy, happiness, abundance in all aspects of your life, you must shed the impoverished thinking, the limited idea that you aren't worthy.

Too often the number one thing that keeps love, peace, compassion, abundance, and happiness from showing up in your life, is the idea that you aren't worthy of those things.

YOU ARE WORTHY OF ALL THE LOVE, PEACE, JOY, COMPASSION, AND ABUNDANCE OF ALL THINGS IN YOUR LIFE!

You must work on the subconscious thinking, the limited idea that has been planted in your dome, that you aren't worthy of great things. JUST BEING ALIVE, HERE, AND LIVING IS YOUR TICKET TO A GREATER LIFE.

Your breath is your pass, your heartbeat is your right, your thoughts, the trail to your truth. When you decide to shed the false belief of the conditions that are tethering you to the ghosts of what was, and start to accept that you are worthy of all good things, by the right of being alive, you'll begin to see small changes occur in your life.

Suddenly, you realize that you have so much more to do in the span of your existence on this planet. And let me follow that statement up with this: What you do doesn't have to be this grand gesture that changes the masses. Maybe what you do will change the course of one person. Maybe your purpose is to help one person. Maybe it's to learn how to accept peace in your heart, love an animal, pick up the broken pieces of a friend, maybe your purpose is to learn how to love in a deeper capacity. Your purpose is personal, and it's waiting on your discovery of it. And if it takes your entire life to discover it, so be it.

But YOU are the key. You are the only one who can decide how to react and act. Nobody can do it for you. Nobody has that much power in your life. And if you think they do, it's because somewhere you've been told or taught you are powerless. And, you, my dear, amazing friend are not powerless, you are powerful.

So how do you start? How do we uncover this power that has been beaten down, hidden, and torn from your consciousness? You start with three simple words. I LOVE MYSELF.

That's right, you must love yourself first. You must tell yourself every day, every hour if need be, I AM WORTHY.

Because you are. You are worthy of love, peace, compassion, joy, happiness, prosperity and knowledge. You are worth the time it takes to redefine and rediscover the truth of who you are. You've been beaten down for way too long. You've been told that you aren't worthy, and that is a LIE. It's a lie!

I don't care what you were in your past. I don't care. YOU ARE WORTHY OF FORGIVENESS. Forgive yourself for the crap you've done in the past. Nothing, and I mean nothing will ever change it. It's cemented in the history of who you once were, but it doesn't have to define who you decide to be today.

Yes, we must learn from our past transgressions, yes we must "repent" for our "sins." We must make efforts to right our wrongs, BUT, we don't have to carry them with us, living in that pain forever. We have to find that place within us that knows we were wrong, and do better next time. If we don't learn to forgive our mistakes, and eventually forgive the transgressions of those who have hurt us, we will continuously live a life filled with pain, suffering, guilt, shame, anxiety, and anger. You don't deserve that life, my friend.

You are worthy of love. You are worthy of forgiveness. And yes, it might take some time for the forgiveness to come from others, everything has a due process and some take more time than others, but you work on forgiving yourself. Work on learning from the choices that caused the pain in the first place, then and only then will you truly find the forgiveness you are looking for. The deep, true, soul changing forgiveness we all ache to experience and eventually embrace.

You are the most powerful thing in your life. You are the only one who has the power to choose how you're going to act and react. Come from love and see what happens. Come from a place of real deep forgiveness, and see the power and freedom that resides in the act of forgiving. Choose to rise above the chaos and find that one thing that imbibes your soul with peace.

You are worthy, my friend, so worthy.

With LOVE and COMPASSION,

Gretchen de la O

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

Just because someone doesn't live up to your expectation, doesn't make them wrong or less than.

Interpretation is half of the problem, the other half is our own ability to lay blame with others.

When we stop making our way right and other people's wrong, and we approach a situation with an open mind, we find that we fear less and we love more.

We are a fear based society. We are constantly bombarded with fear through all avenues of our lives. We can't even have a conversation today without fearing how it will be interpreted.

We have these impossible ideas of what to expect from people without ever communicating with them. We let hearsay propagate and perpetuate fear, hate, and anger. We let our own expectations dictate the outcome. When we worry, we draw things to worry about in our lives, when we are mad, we find more things to be mad about. When we expect people to behave like assholes, they will live up to our expectations, because what we focus on grows, what we put our energy into manifests, what we empower in our thinking and life will multiply. It is the law of Cause and Effect.

We don't have to live in fear, pain, anger, guilt and shame. We don't have to bite into the consciousness that the world is a terrible place to live.

Yes, there are terrible events and situations in the world, and yes, sometimes we are smack dab in the middle of them. I'm not saying we will never experience negative situations, to say that would be unrealistic. We are humans, having human experiences. What I am saying is we don't have to make fear the cornerstone of our thinking.

Why do we believe we must live under such limited thinking? What are we so afraid of?

Yesterday will NEVER change, it's written in the cosmos of the Universe, it is history, it's soaked into the walls of what was. So to fret your past gives nothing to your future. And to have preconceived ideas about tomorrow is a waste of your energy. Because, tomorrow will never come.

Tomorrow will always be tomorrow, with unwritten moments we will never experience but always long for. Tomorrow will always be just beyond our reach, always creating the need to continue a forward push.

Today, the present, this moment now, is what we must focus on. The ONLY thing we have some type of expectation and any control over. Your reactions are what make today, your thinking at this moment is what creates and motivates all your tomorrows. You've been given the best gift right now, and that is this present moment.

You messed up yesterday, use today to learn and move from it. You are not what yesterday was, you are what is unfolding right now. Stop looking back and wishing you did it differently. YOU CAN'T. IT'S DONE. THE ONLY THING YOU CAN DO IS MAKE TODAY BETTER.

You are more powerful than you think you are. Truly, if yesterday you were weak, make up your mind that today you are stronger. You  fell back into an old routine yesterday, know that today is not linked to yesterday's failures. You start new every second of every minute of this moment right now.

What if someone you respected, listened to, and always took their advice told you that you don't have to make an excuse for past mistakes, you don't have to carry them across your shoulders anymore. Lay them at the doorway of yesterday and come into today renewed and clean. They told you, that ALL your past is wiped away, and only this moment--right now matters. How would you react? I mean, truly think on that for a moment ... if someone you loved, admired, and listened to without question just said, forgive yourself, live right now like yesterday didn't happen, and find your inner peace, would you do it?

I think if someone told you to lay your burdens outside of the front door of their house and come in to rest, most, if not all of us would do it. Someone asks you to take off your shoes before you go into their house, you do it, out of respect. Why wouldn't we respect ourselves enough to lay all of yesterday's failures, mistakes and foibles at the doorway of today?

This is your day, a day to be the best you can be, whether it measures up to someone else's expectation or not. You have every right to take this moment and make it yours. Embrace your inner power and strength. Find something that makes you happy, and be motivated to make something wonderful today. And no matter what, never give over to the guilt or shame of other people's expectations. You are exactly where you need to be right now. And if you hate where you're at, change your mind about it. Change your thinking and you will change your life.

May LOVE and PEACE be yours today.

LOVE,
Gretchen de la O

DOGS AND BEES CAN SMELL FEAR...

DOGS AND BEES CAN SMELL FEAR ...

Well, so can our thinking! Our minds react and produce from whatever thoughts we think. If we come from fear, then our actions and reactions will manifest from fear based ideas.

Hear me out...

We have within us the power to produce exactly what we want in our lives. It's how and why we react that creates our experiences. If something devastating happens to us, it's within our scope of how we react that will manifest our experience.

Tragedy strikes so many people, and why is it that some seem to handle it better ... scratch the word better ... how about differently than others?  How come some people can find peace in the most tragic moments of their lives while others simply can't?

We are born without baggage, without fear, doubt, and conditions. We are an empty slate, waiting to be filled with all the wonders of this thing we call life.  We enter this world and are born to parents that are conditioned to living in a world or chaos, constant change, socialistic pressures, and demands put upon them that they must believe, act, and become conditioned to the world.

Without malice or hate, but out of love and compassion, most parents rear their children to fear actions of others, bend to the beliefs of others, and give into the conditional thinking that they have been brought up to believe is the truth. WE ALL DO IT. We aren't wrong for doing it, we can't live in guilt or shame for doing it, it's in our nature to protect, teach, and control those beings we've brought into this world.

But as we grow up, and we learn that we are separate entities from our parents, we begin to discover we were brought into this world already possessing everything we need. We are powerful beings, we are the only living things on this planet that actually has volition and are self-aware with a consciousness. We can actually rationalize our actions, and reactions, and we don't have to rely upon just instinct.

When we set out to discover the limitless power that resides within us, we begin to see how our actions, reactions, and inaction effect the situations in our lives. We learn that the law of Cause and Effect is real, powerful, and nobody is immune to it. The Law of Reciprocity, within our thinking is a very real and powerful thing. What we put out into the world, the thoughts we think, the actions we take, will produce a result. It's a 100% non-negotiable law of nature.  

Think about it ... how many times have we feared something was going to happen and boom, it happened? Sure, we can say, "well, I've had that happen before, so I knew it was going to happen again." But see, there is the challenge. Why did it happen in the first place?

Let's look at precedents... Yes, precedents, something that sets the bar of what to expect the next time... We are taught to believe that if a precedent is set, that is all that we can expect to happen. We reach for that bar and when we get there we believe that's the best we can achieve because nobody has gone beyond that... until someone does.

It was believed nobody was faster than the 4 minute mile until someone broke the record. It was believed that we couldn't break the sound barrier ... until someone did it. And it was believed that a human being couldn't survive jumping out into the stratosphere in just a spacesuit and float back down to earth ... until someone did it.

We are all conditioned to believe we are limited in our actions, that we can't stand on the edge of what was done before and leap into what can be done now. We are conditioned by fear, by lack of belief, and by the conditional thinking of the world.

When we react or act from a fear based belief, we are giving into the idea that we aren't worthy enough, that we aren't good enough, that we don't deserve the best that life has to give us.

Truth is ... you deserve the best of everything! You deserve happiness, you are worthy of love and compassion, you have a right to live the best life you know how to live. It is within your power to challenge that which has been done before and work to reach beyond it. If everyone lived within the belief and fear of the world, imagine the world we would be living in.

I'd be pissed if some dude was still dragging my a$$ around by my hair. We wouldn't be communicating with people from around the world today, and we would be stuck in the conditional thinking that innovation didn't exist.

It's easy to say, don't let fear rule your life, don't let the feelings of inadequacy plague your thoughts, and don't let the words or actions of others steal your voice, but it's another thing to act upon it.

So, what I'm saying is, take baby steps. Take one moment at a time and ask yourself, do I really need to fear this? Are the sharp, painful words of that person really the truth of who I am? Why am I allowing the conditional thinking of those around me, define my experience?

Because the truth is, you are the most important person in your life. Without you, you wouldn't be here... your life wouldn't exist, and that wouldn't be acceptable. So take the time and learn to love yourself, honor who you are, respect yourself, and change your self-talk, your limited thinking, and your unworthy thoughts. You are the miracle of life. You are the prize the universe gave to the world. Take a moment today to discover the limitless potential you have within you, waiting on your discovery of it. You'd be surprised what you are capable of, when you give yourself a chance to believe in your inner strength and limitless power.

May PEACE and LOVE be yours today!

Love,

Gretchen

#BigO #O #OlongOLongPost #PowerToYou #PlugIn #BeTheChange #YouAreAwesome #DontGetDerailedByLimitedThinking

DID YOU REALLY EXPECT THAT?

(long but did you expect anything less! LOL)

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Don't be let down by missed opportunities or lost moments. Sometimes things or events don't happen for a reason.

When what you expect to happen, doesn't, maybe, just maybe the Universe has a better plan for you!

Expectations can be a blessing or a curse, but within the paradox of what type of expectation it is, when it doesn't occur, you have to wonder if the Universe knows better than you.

It's tough when you expect something to go a certain way, or you've played the "story" out in your head over and over again ... and it doesn't go the way you thought.

The key in disappointing moments is patience and forgiveness. PERIOD. When things don't go the way we expect, if can we step outside of the moment we're in and look at it from the outside, we will use a different mindset. In using that different mindset, we'll actually see that the outcome is for the best.

When things don't go our way, instead of reacting from the outcome, or the result, if we actually looked at the cause or gave up our idea of what we think should happen, we empower ourselves to overcome the unnecessary stress of disappointment. When we stop reacting to the results, we evoke within us the ability to see things from other perspectives.

Listen, people who love us, don't set out to hurt us. They don't intentionally say to themselves, "Hell, yeah! I'm gonna hurt Gretchen today, cuz I luv her so much." And if people are doing this, well, that's something we need to re-evaluate in our relationship with them. Maybe expectations are not crystal clear.

We get hurt because our expectations were shattered. The players in our "story" didn't fit into the protocol of the plot line. Let's just say they "missed the memo" about script changes! The trouble with this situation, (which we ALL have experienced at one time or another in our "stories"), is we didn't inform the other players that we made some changes in the script/expectations. We didn't have a script supervisor around to "feed" the people in our story the right lines to say.

Our expectations can really mess up a relationship, an event, an experience. It can make us angry, hateful, stressed and riddled with anxiety. Who wants to feel that??? Why then, oh why, do we allow these expectations to feed that side of us? We have no control over another person, to have these unrealistic expectations are only hurting ourselves.

So, this is what I say to this situation ...

Stop expecting perfection. Stop setting yourself up to be hurt. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, guess what my dear, loving friends, it's a freaking duck. If your relationships are always tumultuous and you're tired of it, stop expecting it. THAT SIMPLE, YES, IT'S THAT SIMPLE. (Sorry for shouting, but you need to see that.)

If your expectations are set that everything in your life will be hard, guess what? EVERYTHING will be a struggle. Your expectations are the whispers you feed to the Universe and since the Universe is a "YES" woman/man, ---he he he, THEN, everything you whisper with expectancy will be acted upon. PERIOD, END OF STORY.

What you put out to the world, comes right back to you. It might not come back to you through the same avenue you sent it off, but trust me, it comes back. You might not get it back right away, but eventually it comes back. See, the Universe doesn't know time, It's a timeless and omnipotent, limitless Energy. When you toss your expectations into this Energy, It acts upon it exactly according to your belief. So, today look at what you're expecting.

Decide if your expectations are feeding your soul; are they giving you a better life? Or is your expectation feeding your ego? Is it giving you an excuse to remain angry, bitter, cold and frustrated? If it doesn't serve your highest and best good, let it go... let it go, my dear sweet loves. The only way someone can hurt you, is if you give them permission to hurt you. ---Yeah, I'm really working on this one myself. Re-evaluate your expectations today; are they too high? Are your expectations so out of reach that nobody can fulfill them, not even you? If so, take them down a notch. I'm not saying don't have expectations, just give them a bigger "strike zone". Allow room for something greater or different to show up. Because, when you do that, you'll be pleasantly surprised that something even greater is waiting to happen.

LOVE you and may PEACE be with you today!

‪#‎UniverseItEnergyGod‬ ‪#‎KeepYourChinUp‬ ‪#‎TrustLove‬‪#‎ScaryButOnceYouLetGoAndLetLifeOccurSomethingMagicalHappens‬‪#‎YesItsHard‬ ‪#‎LifeIsPerfectlyImperfect‬ ‪#‎Expectations‬‪#‎StopExpectingCrapAndItWillStopShowingUP‬ ‪#‎BigO‬ ‪#‎O‬ ‪#‎GreenHearts‬