Tag Archives: Life

YOUR LIFE IN AD LIB . . .

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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YOUR LIFE IN AD LIB . . .

When I was young, there was only one reality for me.  I was only interested in being a wife and a mother.  Looking back, all the things I did, all the activities I practiced, my play, my favorite times, my significance, all was vested in that journey.  Lo and behold, the two things of significance I have not done in my lifetime are those very things which I spent my childhood playtime and chore time in preparation.  I knew how to cook, bake, clean house, sew and I observed with admiring eyes, the most giving examples of women who were devoted to lives at home with husbands and children.  So, why do you ask, have I not accomplished that yet?  Hmm, it never seemed right the times the roles were offered to me previously.  It’s simple.  Life isn’t always the way we write the script, but rather in how we read the script which was given to us for our lives!  Or perhaps, even more daring in theory, how do we go off script, and ad lib our lives?

Don’t be a victim all the time!  It’s easy to complain and admonish yourself, or worse, others, for what has or hasn’t transpired according to your preconceived script.  Simple to understand but difficult to believe, we may have to live ad lib.  Yikes!  It’s not that hard, haven’t you ever had a time in life when you have had to wing it?  It’s our faith, our magical molecules, our vast capacity for determining things with reasoning, thought, and cognition which permit us to make our way up as we go.  Pretense, acting, it’s all the same really . . . we might feel slightly better were we to know things ahead of time, but imagine if you actually knew the exact moment of your death ahead of time.  The only people I know who are truly eager for that are suicide bombers, who believe in their supposed heroism that the action of death will lead to glory somehow.  They are delusional.  The rest of us, with healthy psyches and emotional personnas, know without a doubt, that some things are much better left unknown!  

So, let go, let your faith guide you, believe in your own journey’s validity, have dreams, but sometimes let yourself make it up as you go!  You might discover the person you were really meant to be lives under the shadow and forced shell of the troublesome rigidity of that other person you think you should be.  Dare to dream, but also dare to let your heart, your instincts, but most importantly, your trust in your higher power be your guide.  The zig zags of life are what you’ll remember more than the sure steps you  planned ahead of time, I guarantee it! 

HOW TO DREAM BIG!

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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HOW TO DREAM BIG!

I’ll be frank here, dreaming is always in competition with my more practical side, the realistic side which screams, “Don’t you open up your heart to those foolish dreams, you’re just asking for trouble!”  I’ve admittedly been broken down, busted apart and found myself wondering why I ever dared to dream when they pan out and fall to pieces.  I’ve always gotten back up, stepped back into my “fantasy”, and hoped all over again.  The true nature of a positive thinker is optimism, but also the very personification of that optimism, is in the ability to re-form visions, to dare to dream again!

Living in this most arduous world today requires great faith.  We are bombarded with realism.  It’s not that everything we contend with is in fact new, but we didn’t actually hear about it every second of every day before.  We literally hear about the world’s issues 24/7, through our tv’s, our internet services, our phones, our friends, our constant communication!  It’s true that our world can crush our dreams.  We must learn to rise above the heartbreak, the disappointments, the devastations, the anxieties, the traumas, and all the dramas which play out each day upon our senses!  Learn to filter for the preservation of your own sanity, but also to encourage the nurturing  of your dreams!  They need bright light to grow to maturation, not the dimness of futility and despair!

Bring your heart along for the ride, let your imagination guide you and direct you.  All ideas are yours from Divine providence, so you should be encouraged to believe that each and every idea fostered inside your imagination has merit, has possibility, and has great chance for success!  Don’t let anything deter your dreams from living full, healthy, complete lives.  Let your dreams develop from their infancy as little seeds, born inside your thoughts, to full-fledged accomplishments, which you mark upon your checklist of lifetime significance.  Believe in the dream and believe in you!

THE SEA OF LIFE

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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THE SEA OF LIFE

Life is like a sea, sometimes we are on top of the waves, feeling like surfers tackling our problems and making headway with a big grin for all the success we feel. Other times, the waves are complacent little bobs of nothingness,which although still slight swellings responsible for some motion, which barely take us anywhere and we end up feeling stagnant, like we’re stuck. Then every now and then, we get those tsunamis, sometimes even in clusters of multiples, which not only scare us, but take us so far and so fast in turbulent distress out of our norms, that we are shocked, dismayed, and disturbed by the sheer fact that our sea of life sent them our way. Most of the time, we hope to be in the constant calm of a crystal blue sea, able to see our direction ahead, surrounded by others whom we trust and love, responsible for our own journey with a definable compass and equipment we can rely on, and with the knowledge that we haven’t had any upsetting tides nor stagnant times to stress us. 

When life’s sea sends us in strange and unknown waters, those uncharted and with unknown markers, we can feel fear. We can find ourselves more afraid to proceed in life than ever before . . . and fear is the vast darkness of depths yet unseen. Fear robs us of so much joy in life, it steals our peace of mind and catapults us into places of despair and evil. If you could equate it to the realm of the sea, it would be like finding either a shark’s fin cutting through the water’s surface near you, or even a school of sharks swimming underneath you. Nothing screams more primally of fear than imagining the fear of the top predator of the sea crossing our pathway! Our fears are like that. They live in the darkest recesses for a reason. They prey upon our peace for a reason. They are disturbing and unsettling to us for a reason, they are imagined, they are unseen, they are usually unrealized. So why do they garner so much power? Well, fear is the realm of all the negative thoughts we have, so in that negativity lives all that is wrong within us. 

We can also dwell in the drift of nothingness, when it seems as though the sea hasn’t enough current to propel us anywhere!  We become frustrated and puzzled,wondering how to find our escape, to swim ourselves free from the confines of stagnation! Is that so bad?  Normally we like a bit of calm, but in stagnation, means a floundering without direction, with no definable goals, our aspirations falter and we suffocate when finally, in fatigue, we sink into the endless sea around us.  It’s tiresome and overwhelming, this state of affairs!  We must learn to have faith and to leap forward when life stops dead in its tracks.  There are motors on a sailboat for the times when the wind is not anywhere to be found.  Sometimes in life, we need our plan B’s to guide us to another place where we are more ready to wait out the dead spaces of nothingness which surround us.  Don’t be afraid to use your motor when the sails won’t fill with air!  Call upon the powers which guide you, for me it is God!  Always and forever, I will rely and trust in Him.  Use your strength to move past the moments of stagnancy and consternation, press on!

No matter what the sea of life brings your way, be happy always and thankful for the fact that you are still afloat!  It is important to be grateful for your life, your current circumstances, your blessings, your joys, your family, your friends, no matter what you can say is something of value in our life, even life itself!  Be grateful!  It is better than drowning in the dark sea, giving up, and never knowing the true measure of life . . . promising and beautiful, filled with reasons to celebrate, even the smallest reasons exist in each moment of the day, every day!  Appreciate your sea!   Your waves might become this great set of surfable ones which carry you to a place of previously unknown successes, growth, love, happiness, desire, dreams, and inspiration!  

BIG PLANS FOR A BIG LIFE

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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BIG PLANS FOR A BIG LIFE

If you want to have a big life, you have to make big plans, design your own big dreams and dream bigger dreams than people think are possible achieving!  Life isn’t a trial and error process, it’s in the execution of purposeful living.  If you persist that it is only filled with obstacles and occlusions, then guess what?  That’s what you’ll encounter each and every step of the way!  When you see the inability to achieve something easily as a minor inconvenience which forces you to amend your journey for the better, then you will already be miles ahead of where you would have been before!  Live with purpose, with an insistence that even bumps in the road will serve to take you to a better place in the roadway.  Don’t just be a reactionary, waiting to follow the ups and downs of life, instead, be a leader of your own life by purposefully pursuing dreams and goals!

The hardest thing to give up on is a dream.  Why should we then?  The short answer, we never should, not if we truly desire that which we’ve dreamt!  Well some of us give up on them when we get frustrated from too much time ticking off life’s clock, or too much pressure from our family or friends convinces us we are not worthy or able to achieve a dream. Sometimes dreams seem so impossible when we are sitting in our current position, maybe we’ve been beaten down and have so much trepidation about ever reaching the stars!  If you don’t aim for the outermost limits of the space around you, then you will never know how far you are capable of going!  

Never letting a dream die is the best advice to give a friend who is struggling these days, no matter how they perceive their future.  If they truly aspire to achieve something, no matter how seemingly big nor small, then they should never give up on the accomplishment of that dream! Never let yourself be let down by life.  We may not see the timing as being favorable to our schedule, but it may be just the timing to allow us to accomplish the best, the most and the greatest! We need to know life is still hopeful and encouraging . . . we need to believe in our ideas, our concepts, our beliefs, our aspirations.  We need to know life is ours for the making!

LEARNING AS I GO

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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LEARNING AS I GO

Life is a process, you can dream about your whole life, plan it out in minute detail even, following your own set course, up until the time that life happens for real.  When life intrudes on how we are living, we must make a detour, we must set our course to new geographical coordinates, and find a new direction suitable for our amended goals.  All of us are learning as we go, we are taking our cues from what happens to us as we proceed, and when we are confronted by things which we must correct in our plan, we have no choice but to redirect, reconfigure and reconnect our internal hard-wiring to be accepting of newness and variation.  Life is a learning process, the minute you stop learning, you are either dead or on your way.  There is no way to limit the inevitability of life challenging us, making us hopefully rise, and not fall to each occasion, demanding from us a certain level of participation.  Life is not a spectator sport! 
Life requires your constant involvement, each day is a rude awakening of the unexpected, combined with the planned, all to make us expectant and surprised, in a fabulous match of emotional internal ping pong.  This is the trick of life, it isn’t ever what you assume it should or would be, it is always a mix of upsets swirling together with the planned.  There is never a time when we aren’t feeling something from a new source, or experiencing a different situation requiring us to look for navigational help.  Even when we share an experience with another human being, the way we deal with it, feel about it, and internalize the situation will always be uniquely our own.  No one else can ever know exactly how it feels to be us. That being said, perhaps we should learn to just go with the flow more often, as life will always take us for a ride, give us a thrill and leave us wondering why things cannot remain constant and steady a while, or just more often! 

How do we learn to let it ride?  Well, the older I get, the more I realize I don’t know about life, and its limitless potential to leave me dazed and confused.  Life is definitely a thrill-ride of surprise, shock, and less often, same-old, same-old.  I admit to being a fan of the routine, the usual, the constant, but the reality of life very rarely permits me to wallow comfortably in that state of being.  Life is rarely that “perpetually” anything, there are usually mishaps, snags, snafus, and dramas often causing unrest all at the same time.  The most important quality to have in life, as my burgeoning wisdom has taught me, is a sense of faith, unwielding and constant.  These most important qualities, hope eternal, faith constant and patience without end must reside perpetually within me.  That’s how you learn to live through life.  Love is a given if you are healthy and in touch with your spirit, but having those other qualities to tether you to the mast, assuring that you are going to find your way through, no matter the storm, is essential to your sense of victory in this life.   Life will shock you, it will lull you in to a sense of false security, thinking there are rhythms of calm and comfort ahead, then “pow”, along comes the first shock!  From that moment on, the only way to respond is to move out of the reaction mode and into the action mode, give up the “victim’s” role and learn to be a conqueror, as you go!

Life Is Like A Classroom

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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Life Is Like A Classroom

Life is like a classroom, our daily tests – those things which happen to us by choice & by randomness. Each day we wake begins the day of testing, much like in school, we just have a much bigger & more expansive classroom & arena for learning. Some things on our tests we’re prepared for, we know what to do. Other things are just “out of the blue” & leave us guessing for ways to respond so that we can do our best to make it through the test. We don’t like to view life like a vast classroom, somehow we assume the end of school days means the end of this whole process of our learning & then having to prove we know what we’ve learned, but it is surely our task to pick up where we leave off as adolescents & continue the process right up until the day we pass.

It never stops, so we cannot stop either . . we must continue to learn, to grow, to seek knowledge, to make better choices, to avail ourselves of all the benefits of life lessons so that we make for ourselves a better life. When viewed thusly, we realize our goal is to pass each lesson, to learn & to grow. When we look to the lessons as necessary teachers enabling us to learn sufficiently to advance us to some higher level of wisdom, knowledge & understanding, then they become positive parts of our daily experiences, we advance with each one learned instead of remaining where we are!

Definitive’s In Life

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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Definitive’s In Life

Lately I’ve had some reminders of definitive’s in life, taking delight in watching a young girl discover misters in Phoenix, her pleasure in the feeling of the cool light spray of water as it hit her skin all while she laughed with such sheer joy! On the plane, I watched a small child celebrate the flow of air coming out of the overhead vent as it blew her hair about. The last few days seeing children & adults find their inner youthful exuberance reborn through play in the water, on ziplines, in all sorts of endeavors meant to ignite their sense of exploration, their desire to find joy in tasting life!

I am reminded that life is to be lived to the fullest & I feel sorrow for those who are unable to find simple pleasure in places even common & even the simplest things, for our joy is found within, it comes from a place inside which knows how to be a child at the right times, but also how to connect with that inner spirit of joy at surprising moments within our days! No matter your place, if you are not finding joy in your days, you’re not feeling it first within!

What Used To Be Best

05 Wednesday Sep 2012

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What Used To Be The Best

Sometimes in life, what was once the best thing becomes the most painful. What once gave you joy now brings you sorrow, what was once your shining time is now your memory, what once brought you so much contentment & peace now makes you fearful & filled with doubt. It is inevitable that we will experience events which are capable of altering our perspective, but it always up to us as to how we react in the long term. If we realize that something good became something bad, then surely we can see how something bad can then again become something better! Look at the aspects of how you can learn from every scenario, making the most of the moments of reflection in the change, then seize upon the wealth of that lesson & move forward knowing that all will once again be changing. Life events are like the changing currents of wind in the sails of a sailboat . . we need to be flexible, we need to appraise our position upon the prevailing conditions & we need to be able to adapt as best as we can to what we encounter! Then we need to proceed into life with expectation & faith!

When It Is Time To Let Go…

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

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When It Is Time To Let Go…

 

Sometimes in life, we have to learn to say our goodbyes.  It’s inevitable.  Life happens, situations change, circumstances occur and those we love leave.  It’s not ever easy . . if it were, there wouldn’t be a whole industry dealing with grieving and therapy wrapped up in helping people to cope with losses.  The simple fact of the matter is that we are always going to have to learn to face the inevitable thief who comes to steal our steady contentment and joy, replacing it with fear, anger, pain, hurt, and a flood of loss washing over us.  On any given day, people may come happily into our lives anew, but we may have to learn to say goodbye too.  No matter how many times you have said goodbye to someone, whether in a breakup or by death, the feeling is usually the same.  It’s grief.  It starts with shock and sometimes mixes immediately with anger, but always sadness swirls in to take your happiness temporarily away, much like the clouds moving over the sun.  Even when you have purposefully extricated someone from your life, you still feel much the same way about it, for it is a loss, albeit by choice.  

The worse losses are those, whether expected or not, which take those we love deeply away from us for good by death.  If you’ve never experienced a loss like that, you are very fortunate.  If you have, you know as I do, the sense of grief washing over you like a tsunami of pain and hurt.  It ebbs and floods again forward, with no rhyme nor reason, it takes its toll upon every part of your life, and when it finally eases up in the future, there’s no absolute recovery, only a tender daily lessening of the impact.  Love is never easy to leave behind nor to lose.  By choice, it’s a double-edged sword.  To give it up requires a sense that the pain without it will be less in time than the pain you experience with it.  When it just happens through the cruel twists of fate without your say-so, you will one day feel more like your old self again, but time is what is required, and at best, it takes a lot.  You’ll never be all the way back to the way you were before the loss, but then again, we are never, from one day to the next, the same anyway.  Learn to find the positive in all circumstances, even if at first that seems highly implausible, for it is what makes the hurt have less power for a shorter period of time in your life.  That’s the best you can hope for!

Conquering…

04 Tuesday Sep 2012

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Conquering…

Life is not easy . . we reach stages in our lives when things happen which we simply do not understand, nor have answers for, which test our self-confidence or take hostage our self-esteem.  We feel challenged and pinned up against a wall, immovable and often incapable of progress.  When in these states, we often feel completely out of control, unworthy and stressed to a high level.  It might be a personal problem with a close associate or loved one; it might be from health issues we seemingly cannot resolve to our own satisfaction; we might be beleaguered by conflicts in our work, our home life, our personal relationships or elsewhere; or perhaps we are just aging and feel uncertain how our lives will pan out, how our dreams will be realized.

 Life is not easy, it demands our attention and perseverance to make the best choices, to examine our options and to be true to our own internal spiritual needs.  We must live in tune with many varying factors for our lives to be sensical and for us to deem them successful in the end.  When even one part of our life is out of tune, we notice a sour note played out in the way we appreciate things . . some of our joy is waning, our happiness is not guaranteed, we are more stressed and we struggle more against the currents of our daily endeavors.  Even one choice made erroneously, against what we deem essential for the happiness and contentment of our spirits, can leave us burdened with troubles! 

Knowing what makes you happy is key.  First of all, knowing that only you can be responsible for your own happiness is even more essential in life!  It is no one else’s job to make you happy, to cause your happiness, nor to decide what things in life will lead to your happiness.  Only you, with your consult in God, can make those determinations!  Learn to listen to the internal nudges and proddings which are your instincts.  They are often the best way to heed the real desires of your heart, no one else need convince you of their viewpoint . . only your desires matter after all, it’s your life!  Learn to trust your judgment as it is always the case that a wrong choice, or a choice which weakens your spirit, goes against God’s will or isn’t in your best interests will spike an instinctual call to make a different choice, or at the very least, to correct a poor prior choice!

 We are our own best advocates . . we know what it is that we need, want and what is best for us.  Learning to keep that in the forefront of our minds when making all decisions always assures that we will not make wrong decisions.  It’s okay to say no, to not do what others ask, to be so concerned about the state of your own spirit, that not doing something is the way to go!  Listen with a more alert heart to what makes you spirit content, that is what you should always do!  It is true that you always know in your own “gut” what is right or wrong, it’s instinctual, you feel it! 

The other way to conquer all your issues is to find a peaceful way to be calm when making decisions, when thinking and deliberating on something, and when you are pondering outcomes.  I choose to seek God’s counsel, for I always think He is leading me in the best way possible, knowing the best course for me, and He is always with me wherever I go.  Without my prayerful contemplation on everything throughout my day, I would be lost!  I ask Him for His grace, His favor, His direction and His loving compassion through each part of my day, every day.  I rely on Him, as He is my Shepherd.  Faith allows me to make that most easy decision to trust in God for all things I need and all that I must do.  It’s as simple as deciding that the way off the cliff each day is the way of faith!  As for our struggles, each one of us has them and must overcome them throughout life.  We haven’t exemptions from struggles.  When I’ve been overwhelmed and clearly befuddled by mine, I find that the most obvious reminder that I need God for everything!  I am incapable of doing and being anything without Him.  I am literally a lost sheep without the voice of the Master.  

Trusting in your Spirit’s communication, which comes through the instincts you sense, is the best way to know that you are keeping on the right path, making the right moves and following in God’s will for your life.  Anything else, and you will feel it as a gnawing in your own gut!  Pay attention, all the signals you need are there!  Just listen to the active voice of the Spirit within you.  It never steers you in the wrong direction.  If you make a wrong turn, listen anew and heed the best way to make the situation work out for your behalf!  It’s never wrong to turn it over to Him!