No Matter a Mountain or a Molehill, The Outcome is the Same

When you stand at the base of a mountain and look up, it can appear to be insurmountable. You can feel insignificant and too small to climb the face of something so massive.

Life can feel that same way at times. But if you lower your head and face forward, you will see the ledges, roots, rocks and crevices you can use to pull yourself up. When we give our attention to that which is right in front of us, the mountain that towers above us, doesn't seem so huge.

Every once in a while, you can look up and see the magnitude of work ahead of you, and in the same token you can look down and see how far you've come. But your resiliency isn't measured in where you came from or how much further you have to climb. Your resiliency and strength is measured by how you move forward from where you are.

You can't look up or down the face mountain and at the same time be successful in placing your hands and feet in the best positions to climb. You must focus, be aware of the moment and make the choices that will keep you clinging and climbing that mountain!

In other words, you must be consciously aware of what you're doing. It's a matter of life and death, success and failure, and eventually reaching the crest of that mountain.

If you are too busy worrying about what's to come or what you've already been through, the significance of the moment you have right now will be lost on your past and what hasn't happened yet. You have an opportunity right now, to either reach for that ledge and pull yourself to the next phase of your climb, or keep clinging to the edge until your hands and feet become tired. You know what to do and how to do it. It's time to start trusting your intuition and let go of the needling fear that's like weights around your ankles.

You have been given the best climbing equipment, ever, it's state of the art and it costs you nothing! You have been trained and equipped for climbing those proverbial mountains your whole life.

You've always possess the ability to think, reason, deduce, and understand. You've always have had the ability to choose, to love, to forgive and to forget! You have everything you need right where you are to reach up and pull yourself to the next section of your climb.

YES, sometimes you'll lose your footing, or grab a rock that's loose, you'll slide and have set backs, but guess what? That's part of being alive. Who doesn't have experiences that seem to kick you when you're down? But it's important to remember that you have a safety rope, a lead rope, and that rope is the one thing that's strong enough to keep you from falling to your death. That lead rope is called faith. It's that faith, in which you have for yourself and others. Faith allows you to start again, keep going and reach for your potential that resides within you. Faith's that still small voice inside of you, faint as a whisper which tells you, that you're worth it, that you can do it, and that love, compassion, peace and strength resides right where you are.

You're a child of God, a reason why life is happening. You are the most valuable person who's climbing the massive mountain called, Your Life! Don't you think it's time to start embracing your strengths and finding the strongest rocks and roots to grab?

Listen, it's not what you were, or what you can be that defines who you are in this moment, you are not yesterday's news and or tomorrows headlines; you are the decisions you make right now, at this moment of your life. Empower yourself and know that you are love, life, joy, peace, compassion, harmony, light and abundance. Know that you are the perfect expression of life, living life to the best of your ability, right where you are.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

Love,

Gretchen

Right Now...Matters.

Do you ever look back at your life and break out in the sweats? You look back at choices you’ve made with your kids, and know you’ve F’d up somewhere? How many times have you woke up at 3am and evaluated your life; letting it replay over and over in your mind like a really bad song you can’t get out of your head?

For some reason, I have this cycle in my life where every couple of weeks I wake up at 3am in a total panic and I keep running over and over in my head scenarios of where I’ve totally screwed up as a parent; thoughts of “If I only” or “Why didn’t I?” Then, I start to worry about the future. Oh, man, don’t get me started about the future.

See, we all believe that we want to do a better job than our parents, and yet, in the back of our minds we keep questioning our outcomes. Should I have done it differently? I should have done this or I should have done that. We should ourselves right out of living in the moment. We keep looking back at what we did, and stress out on something we have no power to change.

Let’s face it, right here and right now…We will never be able to change the past. So why do we try? The only thing we have any control over is this exact moment right now. We keep basing our future on what we experienced in the past, and you know what? It never works because life is subjective. Nobody looks at any given situation the same way. I don’t care what anyone says, we could have a room full of people and something occurs—nobody will tell the same exact story. That’s because we all have our own history stamped and embedded in our minds. It’s the past experiences we cling to so we can draw some form of conclusion for our current state of affairs. We feel the only way to validate our current situation is by comparing it to what has already happened. The problem with that is then we are letting our past dictate our future.

There is absolutely nothing we can do to change the past, so it’s time to stop living in it. What if I said, who cares what we did yesterday, today is a new day? Because guess what? Today, right now, is the first moment of the rest of our lives…What we do right now, is the only thing that truly matters. The past is over, the future isn’t here; it is right now, the present, which we need to see as our gift.

We must stop beating ourselves up for choices we made with our old consciousness and start cheering for the choices we are making with our new consciousness! Right now, we have the choice to live from this moment forward, or keep, hitting the ball and dragging George. It doesn’t do us any good to drag along our past mistakes or doubts. It won’t create the future we want. We want a better future? We must start with living in the NOW, today. Learn from our past but stop inviting it to come along for the ride. Stop letting what we did years ago define who we are today. We are completely different people now.

Thoughts we think today, create the patterns of tomorrow. Think about it, what we focus on today creates our tomorrow. So what are we focusing on; more dread, anger, frustration, and our mistakes? Do we really want that to be who we are and what we bring to the table of our future? Take today each moment at a time. Feel what it’s like to breathe in the only breath of Right Now. Feel what it’s like to be completely present, in the moment. It is the most empowering thing we can do.

Here we go, today, take a moment to talk to someone you’ve never met. Smile at a stranger, hug your children a couple seconds longer, take a moment to stop and really listen to what your loved ones are saying. Be proud of who you are, and what you’ve become. Take this moment, right now, to live the life you’ve dreamed of having. Dare to make right now, the most important moment of your life.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings.

Picture taken when my son hiked the back country of Yosemite-Aug. 2012

An Oldie, But a Goodie!

Things always happen for a reason. ALWAYS...I was going to write a new post when I decided to look through some old postings and found this one. I believe I was led me to this post for a reason. She must know I need her. Here is an Original post from November 2010. And strange enough, just this morning my son asked me for a picture of his grandma, because he has a project due in his Spanish class for "Day of The Dead."



Okay so it's been a little longer than usual since I've posted. Really sorry about that~ been working and just dog tired when I've sat down to write. Things have been taking over my time. You know-- family, house, work, friends, and commitments, they all seem to need a piece of me. Sometimes I feel like Playdough. I'm being stretched, pulled, tugged and twisted into shapes everyone else needs me to be.


Survival gives us the ability to transform into what we need to be at any given moment, but it is our humanity that keeps us doing it.

I don't usually talk about my family on this blog; it has been one of my rules. Less details about my personal life, the better, however; tonight as changed the sheets on our bed (because let's face it, either we are in the shower or we're changing the sheets when we have an "Ah-Ha" moment) I spread out the huge blanket my mother-in-law gave us, and I started thinking about her.

She was a quiet, gentle, nurturing soul, who was abundantly funny and overflowing with love. She was never meddlesome or angry. As I let my mind churn the thoughts of her, I realized how much I missed her. See she transcended this world over six years ago and ever since, there has been a vacancy in my life.

She was sick and went to the hospital early one morning, and passed away that evening. When we arrived at the hospital, she was already in a coma. I never got to tell her I loved her, or thank you. I never got to say goodbye. A day— 12 hours and my life changed.

Did I take her for granted? Absolutely, I never, in my wildest dreams thought about the possibility that in one day I would lose someone that made such a quiet impact on my life. It was only years later did I understand what a huge difference she made in my life and what she taught me. Through her actions I learned what type of mother-in-law I want to be to my sons' wives. Through her words I understood where my husband gets his wit and through her compassion I recognized the sacrifices she made to keep her family safe. She taught me things, even when she didn't know it.

I'm not telling you about her to get some pity points, or cyber-pats on the back. I tell you this story because sometimes we don't realize how fast the world can change when we aren't paying attention. The lessons we lose when we don't take advantage of the time people are with us or we lose the life altering experiences because we are too busy being angry, jealous or spiteful.

We never know when life is going to throw us a curve ball. We never know what is going to happen. So what if we chose to swing instead of backing away? What if we decided to let go of that angst or hate and forgive and forget. We all have people we hold at the top of our "it's your fault list". What if we decided to start erasing one name at a time? Would we see a difference in our experiences? What if we gave up our story and decided it was time to write a new one?

I guess what this post today is morphing into is, take advantage of the positive around you. Live the experiences around you, good, bad or indifferent. Because there will come a day when your life will change, it's inevitable, and it would really suck if the last thoughts you had were— I wish I would have…

Take on the day, smile at a stranger and give back to the community around you, and you will see how different your life can be.

Thanks for reading!

What Floats Your Boat?

Sometimes it takes scraping across the deepest part of the ocean floor to really appreciate the wonders of its immense possibilities.

Now, I’m not suggesting you go drown yourself in the ocean to discover the answers to your life’s problems. However; the shock of the frothy freezing waves as they pummel you against the hard sandy beach, just might do the trick.

Because if the ocean, with all its undiscovered hidden treasures and rich abundant sea life, can rejuvenate and support itself so perfectly and with such ease, then why can’t we? What makes us so different than the ocean? Okay, so we don’t have crabs, or tuna swimming freely in the cavernous spaces of our bodies; but we do have the same capabilities as the ocean, in a metaphorical sense. Are we not controlled by the pull of the Sun and Moon? Is not our bodies made up of 97%....water? And do we give life and sustain life around us?

It isn’t the challenges of life that make it worth living; it is how we overcome them. It’s how we react to the swells of change and tides of fortune that make up who we are. We can fear the ocean’s enormity or we can be enamored by its elegance. The choice is ours.

Think about that for a moment…the ocean doesn’t care what we do with it. We can make electricity with it, we can swim in it, pee in it, surf it, take it in buckets and build sandcastles with it, or even sail ships upon it. The ocean doesn’t care because it doesn’t have to. It just is...

The ocean gives of itself without conditions, without fear, and without expecting anything back. WOW…can we say we do the same thing? Can we actually look at our potential, and say—“I give of myself without conditions, without fear, and without expecting anything back?” If you can honestly say you do, then by all means, walk upon the waters, calm the raging seas, and heal the masses of all their ills.

I’m not saying we can never do amazing things, I believe we all have the ability to obtain greatness; all I’m saying is it takes a lot of dedication and practice. We won’t wake up one day and be as open and fluidic as the ocean, but through changing our thoughts, changing the reactions to the world, and changing our dialogue, we can take a huge leap in the right direction.

It is what we do every day and how we feel while we are doing it, that either makes us limitless like the ocean or stagnant like a cesspool.

When undesirable situations come up, how do we react? Are we coming from a consciousness of peace, understanding and love? Or are we hostile, angry, and offended? When someone goes out of their way to help us, are we grateful? Or are we critical? Do we keep talking about the same worn out experiences and past events that evoke feelings of fear, doubt, jealousy, and pain? Or are we letting go of past mistakes and opening up to new possibilities?

Ultimately, if we are like the ocean, people’s limited ideas can’t define us, our possibilities are limitless, our conditions healed, and our worries dispersed in the vast nothingness from which they came.

It is up to us, as individuals to re-evaluate what is important to us, what rejuvenates and re-affirms our place in this world…it’s time to discover…what floats our boat!

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

Sometimes It’s The Little Things

As I sit here thinking about the process of becoming a published author, I experience the all so familiar excitement bubble. The one which tends to crawl up into the back of my throat and likes to wait there for me to acknowledge it before it quietly makes its way back down to my stomach. You know the feelings you get when someone says ‘some words’ that pump your confidence. They stroke that inner fire that sometimes needs another log because it starts to smolder instead of rage. Well that happened on Monday-- twice.

We all are self conscious about our creative work. It does not matter who you are, published, not published, famous, unknown or even a best seller. We all need to know that what we have to say matters- that our words matter. For me, it’s when people tell me that what I have written is really good. It’s when someone actually sees a whole new side of me that they don’t know exists and they discover the feelings it awakens within them. It’s the validation that your hard work, your passion, has an impact on someone’s life. That’s a pretty powerful thing.

Last Monday, my words impacted people’s lives. Who would have thought a nameless mention in a local newspaper or a conversation with a person whose spouse is reading my work, would have stroked the smoldering hot coals into burning desires to keep going? It’s those little things that create the bubble in the back of my throat that tells me I’m doing something right.