Month: June 2016

Never Give Up the Fight

“No one can make you ‘better’ emotionally, mentally, spiritually or physically. You have to find this for yourself. You have to taste that brutal moment when you’re crying in a corner of the room, curled up on the floor and you think this is your end. You have to fight to stand up, literally. And you have to walk over to your reflection and scream, scream it all out. Then you have pick up your sword and fight and never quit. This is your life. Don’t let those bastards win.”

― Crystal Woods, Write like no one is reading

       No one else can fight your battles. No one else can bring you peace or happiness. All of these things you have to learn to do for yourself because it comes from within. For when you’re standing alone on the edge of a precipice, surrounded by darkness, broken and defeated…only you can decide that although the battle was lost and the winds threaten to overtake you, you will not give in – you will never give up the fight.

Your Future has Yet to be Written

“A bad beginning does not keep you from a good ending.”

― Matshona Dhliwayo

          You know the old adage that when it rains it pours. It often feels like things are doomed before they really start. But it is at these times you have to remind yourself that although you cannot change what has already been written, you can change what has yet to come….at any moment in time you have the power to decide this IS NOT how your story will end.

Confronting Your Inner Demons

“Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing.”

― August Wilson

       You can hide from everyone but yourself. No one is perfect. We all have flaws. We all have darkness within ourselves. The key is not to ignore these facets of our soul; rather, you must confront the dark parts of yourself and work to overcome your personal demons. You must work each day to be your highest self.

Life

Some Thoughts on Life by

Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”

       Life isn’t meant to be a cake walk. It’s supposed to be messy, painful and downright heartbreaking. You are here to experience the joys AND heartaches of living. When you take chances, you will inevitably fall and stumble, but that’s part of your journey-your story. So, embrace the fact that life will remain a roller coaster that has its ups and downs, along with its twists and turns before you reach the end.

It’s Okay to Ask for Help

 Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

“One of the greatest barriers to connection is the cultural importance we place on “going it alone.” Somehow we’ve come to equate success with not needing anyone. Many of us are willing to extend a helping hand, but we’re very reluctant to reach out for help when we need it ourselves. It’s as if we’ve divided the world into “those who offer help” and “those who need help.” The truth is that we are both.”

        It is so very hard to ask for help. But, it’s so easy to adopt the attitude that you don’t need anyone and if you are going to succeed, you can do it by yourself. And you don’t realize that in adopting that attitude, you are only hurting yourself. It is not a sign of weakness or failure to say “I need help…I can’t do it by myself ” Rather, it is a sign of strength to be able to not only give help to others but to receive it as well.

Don’t Give in to Disappointment

“Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers, intensifies, but never destroys it.”

-Eliza Tabor

         We are all faced with disappointment in our lives.  You cannot have hope without disappointment – as they are opposite sides of the same coin.  So, even though it hurts when you allow yourself to hope for something, for it not to happen, your spirit will not be destroyed.  Your spirit is more resilient than any disappointment or letdown you may face.  And each time you manage to stand up in spite of a setback, you become a little stronger and a little wiser.

Try, Try, and Try Again

Explore. Dream. Discover!

― H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

        I’m so tired of hearing people say – “Oh, that’s too hard.” “Why bother, the likelihood of success is so small.” “You know it’s not going to work out, so why are you doing this again?”  So often in life, we give up without even trying because we automatically assume that we won’t succeed.  But, as I was telling someone the other day when they mentioned that it’s difficult to get a book published. . .I’m like, “I know, but I’m going to try anyway and at least I can say I gave it my best effort and then I can move forward to the next thing.”  For every experience you go through in life, you learn, you grow and evolve.  I firmly believe that years from now when my expiration date gets closer, I will not regret any of the chances I took, but only regret the chances I was too afraid to take – the times where I gave up the fight before even entering the ring.  So, the moral of the story is to try, try, and try again – especially when you think you won’t succeed.  For one day, you may regret never being brave enough to lose sight of the shore.

Out of the Darkness

“A ship doesn’t sink because it is in the ocean in the midst of a storm. It only sinks when the hull is breached, and the ocean gets inside it.”

― Arthur Jackson Jr., Out of the Darkness

        The storms we encounter throughout life do not in and of themselves destroy us.  It is when we allow the rains and heavy winds to seep inside our very soul that our spirits take a beating.  Never forget that we may not be able to choose what storms we face in life, but we do control whether we allow ourselves to succumb to the darkness.

Take Accountability for Your Life

Relinquish Excuses

― Alaric Hutchinson, Living Peace

“Isn’t it funny how we make rational excuses for being out of alignment?

We say, “Well, this ____ and that ____ happened, so it makes perfect sense for me to be feeling like this ____ and wanting to do this ____.”

Yet, to this day, I have never met a happy person who adheres to those excuses. In fact, each time I – or anyone else – decide to give in to “rational excuses” that justify feeling bad – it’s interesting that only further suffering is the result.

There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Sure, we can go there and make choices that dim our lights… and that is fine; there certainly is purpose for it and the contrast gives us lessons to learn… yet if we’re aware of what we are doing and we’re ready to let go of the suffering – then why go there at all? It’s like beating a dead horse. Been there, done that… so why do we keep repeating it?

Pain is going to happen; it’s inevitable in this human experience, yet it is often so brief. When we make those excuses, what happens is: we pick up that pain and begin to carry it with us into the next day… and the next day… into next week… maybe next month… and some of us even carry it for years or to our graves!

Forgive, let it go! It is NOT worth it! It is NEVER worth it. There is never a good enough reason for us to pick up that pain and carry it with us. There is never a good enough reason for us to be out of alignment with peace. Unforgiveness hurts you; it hurts others, so why even go there? Why even promote pain? Why say painful things to yourself or others? Why think pain? Just let it go!

Whenever I look back on painful things or feel pain today, I know it is my EGO that drives me to “go there.” The EGO likes to have the last word, it likes to feel superior, it likes to make others feel less than in hopes that it will make itself (me) feel better about my insecurities. Maybe if I hurt them enough, they will feel the pain I felt over what they did to me. It’s only fair! It’s never my fault; it’s always someone else’s. There is a twisted sense of pleasure I get from feeling this way, and my EGO eats it right up. YET! With awareness that continues to grow and expand each day, I choose to not feed my pain (EGO) or even go there. I still feel it at times, of course, so I simply acknowledge it and then release it.

I HAVE power and choice over my speech and actions. I do not need to ever “go there” again. It’s my choice; it’s your choice. So it’s about damn time we start realizing this. We are not victims of our impulses or emotions; we have the power to control them, and so it’s time to stop acting like we don’t. It’s time to relinquish the excuses.”

          We are all guilty of making excuses for our actions, behavior and words.  I’m willing to admit that I am guilty of this.  It’s not something I’m proud of and it’s something I work on each day.  It is so easy to rationalize your choices and somehow make yourself the victim in every situation.  It’s so easy to “justify” your feelings . . . but at what point are you going to say, “Enough is enough” and start taking accountability for your life?

There is no Perfect Ending

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next.  Delicious Ambiguity.”

― Gilda Radner

          Life is a crazy, beautiful disaster.  It is messy and unpredictable.  But for everything life isn’t, it remains an incredible journey that we are privileged to experience.  People so often say, life is hard – hard compared to what?  Maybe we need to spend less time trying to create this perfect life that society constructs for us – the perfect marriage with the 2.5 kids and white picket fence – and spend more time actually living our lives.  Maybe life isn’t about having all the answers.  Maybe life is truly about appreciating each moment of every day, for tomorrow isn’t promised.  So, today, spend a little less time focused on living for a future that has yet to happen and focus on embracing the present moment, for you will never get this time back.