Wha' You Lookin' at?

If you could take a weekend and look at everything that means anything to you…what do you think you’d find? Do you think you’d learn who you truly are? Would you listen to that inner doubting voice that tells you to let the world dictate your experience? Or would you try and find your peace? Would you let other people define who you are? Or would you discover for yourself? If I could tell you the answer to these questions…people would be lining up in droves, throwing Benjamins my way, while waiting for some magical answer to the problems that keep plaguing all of our lives.

I am a writer, and in being a writer; I thoughtfully and methodically pour over words for months, even years sculpturing fantasies for my readers. I pray for the slight chance that I’ve created a world that they can’t wait to escape into. However; making readers fall in love with characters that only exist in my head produces a very delicate vulnerability within me.

I’ll be the first to admit, as I let the hammer of insecurity slam against the thin bones of my self-doubt, I can feel them begin to shatter in the moments of real desperation as I dance on the thin line of who I think I should be and who I truly am.

When did I, as a writer, decide to pander to the dispassionate and unbelievers? Was it the instant I decided to believe in a reality that exists only outside of myself? 

I totally get it….I totally understand you wanna get yours, just as I wanna get mine. But if getting mine inhibits you from getting yours; would the empty trophies of triumph I collect really be worth it? Or would the sting of words, not meant to be uttered, taint the well of harmony within the writing community I so dearly love?

If I’d only take a splinter of time to recognize the grandeur of moments shared between a smile and a look…even the words I’ve shared across a table…maybe, just maybe my life would be different. Is it fair of me to take the life changing moment from someone simply because they don’t understand what I do? Is it inconsequential to share that sacred place within me as I peel back the scars from words so thoughtlessly thrown against my thin skin? Maybe.

But what if…just what if, I took all those moments of weakness, and the vulnerable split second decisions that thunder so violently through my thoughts and shift the burden of misunderstanding to the weight of having faith in something greater?

It isn’t the thoughts that sail in and out of my intellect that power my experience, it’s the ones that decided to set up neighborhoods in my mind that begin to take hold and shape my life.

I think it is time to become aware of my thinking, because what I think becomes what I experience (no matter what). So maybe it’s time to check out what neighborhoods I keep building and rebuilding in my mind.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings! 

Give back....Pay it forward....help someone discover their true power. Be a listener, and talk when inspiration speaks to you! 

 

Is It Time To Make A Shift?

What makes one day amazing and another disastrous? What creates the wonders of some moments and the fear, doubt and anger of the next? 

It is our reaction to situations. We are creatures floating in old belief systems, traditions, and idioms that we give our power over to, and it is time to stop!

Humans are individual expressions of Universal Truth, placed upon this earth to experience life. Why do you think we are the only living things that are given volition? We are the only living organisms that have the ability to choose consciously. How amazing is that? There is a power out there, pushing, flowing, and drowning us in the possibility and ability to make choices; good, bad or indifferent…we have the ability to change our minds, and in turn, create a shift in our consciousness, which produces an outcome in our physical environment. Think about that…We are born with the ability to think, mentally process, and communicate not only our needs, but our opinions, our beliefs, and our desires. That right there is a miracle. Not many other living creatures have the conscious awareness to make up their minds, choose, and deduce outcomes purely from their thoughts.

But even more incredible we have the ability to override our intuition. We have the choice to listen or not to that intuitive voice in our heads. And right there is the point of where we as individuals choose how to live our lives. We can keep falling victim to fear, doubt and anger, or we can make the conscious choice to think ourselves into a better life.

Yeah, I just saw you roll your eyes…but hear me out! It is all based in scientific principle; or what I like to call Cause and Effect. It has proven time and time again that people can control their experiences by merely changing how they react to the events happening around them in their lives. When we change our outlook or belief about a situation or event, that event or situation must change.

One of the most defining, and definite statements in the Bible is, “It is done unto you as you believe.” It doesn’t say it is done unto you as someone else sees it, or as someone else wants you to see it.

Our life is nothing more than what we keep thinking into it. It is an individual responsibility that you can either live life as a victim or an empowered individual. You don’t like your life or the experience you are having…change the way you are seeing it. Stop reacting from fear and hate, and begin to react from that deep seeded love, harmony and peace. Nobody is making you react to your life, but you! We all have met an Eeyore or two in our lives. You know the people who never catch a break, who never see the forest through the trees, who, if lightning was going to strike they would be the one it would hit. Trust me the world has enough Eeyores!

One of the brightest minds to grace the earth, Albert Einstein was quoted as saying, “You can’t fix a problem, using the same mind that created it.” How profound is that? We can’t change a situation that keeps happening if we keep looking at it the same way we’ve always looked at it. We must change our idea about it, in order to change the outcome. No matter how hard we keep forcing that square peg in that round hole it’s not going to fit until we either change the peg or find a square hole.

Instead of resisting change, begin to embrace it. Instead of looking at a situation from fear and doubt…find a way to come from peace and love. Try and see the good in every situation in your life. Start seeing all the things to be grateful in your life and focus on that. I promise your conversations will begin to change, your environment will change, and you’ll start seeing your life change to something better you had yesterday. Trust me it isn’t easy at first. If it was easy we wouldn’t be experiencing any destruction, disease, and disrespect in this world. But if we just start today, just start in our own lives, seeing the potential, love, peace, and harmony that exists in our lives, no matter how small a spark it seems to be, our lives will change dramatically for the good. 

Okay, enough of my ramblings. I want to leave you with one last statement to think about. Ready? What you think about today creates your tomorrow. What are you thinking about that you want to experience tomorrow?

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

What Are We Afraid Of?

How many of us have been living in a world of what if’s and how can I’s…If we believe we must struggle to have success or suffer to be noble, we will walk around reaching for empty opportunities and cling to other people’s ideas of who we are.

Too often I find myself trying to make my life into something someone else thinks it should be. I stretch myself to create something wonderful only to realize I was putting my power into empty shells of truth and vacant moments created by fear.

We all know how paralyzing fear can be. It can ruin nations, kill millions, and bring the most powerful people to their knees. Fear is insidious. It can creep into our consciousness even when we think we’ve beaten it back. It has a way lurking in the shadows of amazing moments, waiting for the perfect time to rear its impervious head and tear our lives to shreds. But what most people haven’t realized is that LOVE can penetrate the fear, dissolve it, obliterate it, and stuff it back into the vast nothingness from which it came.

All you need is love…love is all you need. Who would have thought the Beatles were so enlightened by singing a simple tune that carried so much influence? But it’s true. Love is the most powerful thing in the world! It can heal nations, give life to millions and has the ability to enlighten the most powerful person in your life…YOU! That’s right, when you come from that place within that’s filled with Love, Harmony, and Peace; suddenly other people’s definitions of who you are…don’t matter, you find it’s much easier to be happy, and you notice fear loses the hold it had on your heart. 

Have you ever met someone who was super happy and wondered, “What did they put into their Post Toasties this morning to make them so happy?” Or you’re in a pissed off mood and someone smiles at you and it makes you stop in your tracks. We are so conditioned in this culture to live in that space between miserable and complacency that we’ve been blinded to what our true potential and life should be.

We are supposed to live a life blanketed in Love, Joy, Peace, Service, Prosperity, and Harmony. Think about it…If we weren’t we wouldn’t long to have it. We wouldn’t cry when children hug their parent returning from war, we wouldn’t have the butterflies in our gut when we fall in love with someone, and we would have the desire to protect the innocent. We wouldn’t experience the goose bumps that ripple across our skin when we see something magnificent.

Life is the biggest miracle ever…period. It doesn’t take someone to walk on water or feed the masses to realize what a miracle is.

What we need to do…and yes, I’m gonna tell you what to do. We need to take a moment and think about how phenomenal our lives really are. Every day we breathe, our heart beats, we think, and have thoughts, we talk, and swallow, blink, and our blood flows through our veins...most of us can taste, see, hear, and have the sense of touch. Miracles that occur every second of our lives and yet we all tend to take for granted. So if there is a power that can create such perfection (even when it’s perfectly imperfect) then we need to, in the very least, acknowledge there is a power greater than us and we have a right to use it.

It doesn’t take much more than a shift in our thinking; a different perspective to the same situation. “You can’t change a problem with the same mind that created it.” (One of my favorite quotes from Albert Einstein). It’s time to wake up, take our lives in our own consciousness, and decide to be the change we want to see in the world. It’ s time for us to change our consciousness…so we can change our lives.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings!

Face Your Fear, and Kick Its Booty!

All my life I’ve been afraid of birds. Yeah, I know, sounds silly right? Well, it stems from almost being attacked as a kid when I rode my bike too close to a momma bird’s nest. From that day on, I owned this fear of birds. I owned it to a point where if I was walking down the street and a little brown bird was on the sidewalk in front of me, I would cross the street to go around it. Yeah, thinking about it…it was pretty silly.

Funny how fear of something we don’t understand can petrify us, and cripple our lives to a point of altering who we are in order to avoid dealing with it. I had friends who had birds, BIG, parrot type birds, that scared the “you know what” out of me. Out of courtesy, those bird owning friends would keep the birds in their cages for me when I’d visit. This soul gripping fear, continued for years, up into my late thirties.

Can you imagine, being afraid of something for most of your life? I bet you can. We all have some type of fear that we’ve held onto for most of our lives. However; this is where my story changes! It wasn’t until my 14 year old (at the time) came to me with his birthday wish. He wanted to get an Xbox 360 with a game called Black Ops. Now, I’m not a prudish mom at all. But for me, that game was way over the top. We argued, he tried to make me see his point of view, and basically it came down to my final answer of NO. Well, in his attempt to call my bluff he announced that if his father and I weren’t going to allow him to have Black Ops, then he wanted chickens! Yes, you read it right, he changed his birthday wish from an Xbox 360 with Black Ops to wanting chickens. Well, the last time I checked, chickens were a form of bird that fluttered, pecked, scratched and were at the top of my fear list, right up there with heights! But being the determined parent to stick to my word, I agreed that indeed, he could have chickens for his 15th birthday. The only stipulations I had were that he had to do the research and choose birds that weren’t aggressive, and didn’t flutter a lot. Oh, yeah, and there was no way I was going to have anything to do with them. They were his and his brothers’ birds…PERIOD.

Well, as promised, on his 15th birthday his auntie and uncle show up with three little birds; a Road Island Red, a Plymouth Rock and an Americana. They were cute and come to find out they needed to be held, they needed to be taken care of, and they needed to cure my fear of birds. So over the next couple of weeks, while they lived under the warming lamp in a plastic bin in my son’s room, Jared took his sketched plans for the hen house, and with the help of his uncle, cousins, brothers and dad, they built a coop for the birds. All the while I started to become invested in these little creatures. I started to see why they stretched their wings, why they squawked, why they scratched at the ground and tried to fly. Slowly I began to look at the birds as something not to fear, but admire. They had their own personalities, their own pecking order, and their own way of living. 

Eventually, our small flock of three grew to the rounded number of eight. And, yes, eight was enough. But as they grew larger and larger, I noticed I my fear of birds grew smaller and smaller. Suddenly, the girl everyone would chuckle at for being afraid of birds became the woman who loved them.

But it was the day that I came upon a pigeon on the sidewalk in front of me and I didn’t feel that twirling anxiety in the pit of my stomach anymore that I realized, I wasn’t afraid anymore. I actually watched it bob its head as it meandered its way around, pecking at the crumbs of a dropped cookie. Wow, how liberating! I wasn’t afraid of it. As a matter of fact, I actually found myself enjoying the moment I took to admire the colors of its feathers.

I know my lack of fear was the result of my being subject to my own brood of birds. I finally understood the relationship between the birds and me. It was Love! When I approached my fear of birds from Love, I was able to see through the ridiculousness of that fear. Fear is nothing more than the result of lack of Love and understanding. We fear things because we don’t understand them. We experience something traumatic, and instead of using that moment to grow, we build a cocoon around our experiences and begin to identify with the situation, which ultimately leads to a phobia or fear. But once we face the fear, dismantle it piece by piece, and eventually imbibe the remaining slivers of fear with Love, we come to see, it wasn’t the thing we were afraid of paralyzing ourselves, but our reaction to it that caused us to limit our lives.

Today, I have no fear of birds! Yeah, even my friends are amazed. Is it amazing? Not really. Losing the fear and finding the Love was what made the difference in my life. Approaching my fear from a place of Love, instead of terror was the turning point for me. Now when I walk down the sidewalk, I don’t avoid the birds…I stop and take a moment to admire just how harmless they truly are.

Thanks for hanging out and reading my ramblings.

Now who could be afraid of these little things?