I read two posts today that made me realize how incredible my life is (see Challenge: Stop Existing and Start Living an Amazing Life by Self Made Chick) and how I can be truly happy in this wonderfully amazing life (see Personal Hack’s post Desire Without Attachment to Outcome). When you stop to think that we only get one chance to live the life we dreamed, why would we want to settle for anything less? It seems like I’ve spent almost a lifetime working on myself – change this attitude, work out this belief – and I settled for whatever came my way. These two wonderful posts shed some needed light on how precious my life is and to go for it with joy.

I have come a long way, as I’m sure most of you have in personal growth. I’m proud of what I’ve learned and overcome but what I realized is that instead of fully working on how much more I should improve, I need to live fully appreciating who I have become. How can I do that and be fully alive?

1. Let go….truly let go. Take care of what you can and let the rest go turning it over to our Source. We wonder why we don’t see what we want happening and it’s because we don’t truly let go and trust. When we want something, let go of the outcome. Also, let go of people’s opinions and what they think you should or should not be doing. No one can understand what you feel from the inside, only you. Honor that.

2. Don’t live in fear. Recognize it and change it by visioning being happy in the present moment. Identify if you’re looking for happiness in your life situations or your aliveness. As Andrew in Personal Hack says,

“As I mentioned your life situation are your current circumstances and situations in life. Your aliveness on the other hand is separate from your life situation. Your aliveness is your present moment, it’s here and now regardless of your past or your future.”

Realizing the difference in these two allows you to see if you’re putting all your energy for happiness in the wrong place. “Embrace the fact that fear and rejection are part of the process,” as said by Christine in Challenge: Stop Existing and Start Living an Amazing Life. When you take risks in life to realize your dream it’s only normal that you would encounter fear and some rejection. Don’t stop there. The world is waiting for a cure for cancer or world peace and it’s waiting for you and me to step up, take part and play our roles.

3. Look at failure differently, not as a measurement of your worth but what you still need to do to realize your success. Very few hit the mark the first time out. It’s a process where we continually keep molding and redefining our ambitions and life’s dreams – our amazing life. Build on the little successes as they come and be open to change and direction to make it better.

4. Set yourself up to succeed. The Universe believes in succeeding and you see it in nature. It turns whatever is available or whatever situation that happens into good by rebuilding, changing and improving. When there is a forest fire nature rebuilds and some flowers that had never been able to survive before in the thick of a forest can now germinate and grow. Meadows flourish and animals have more forage. Set your vision on success and it will follow.

These are some things I realized in reading these posts in how to take charge of my life. It’s my life, the only one I have been blessed with….and I want to live it amazingly. How about you? Let’s all do it together.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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                        Faith

When you walk to the edge of all the light you have
and take that first step into the darkness of the unknown,
you must believe that one of two things will happen:

      There will be something solid for you to stand upon,
      or, you will be taught how to fly

© 1997 Patrick Overton

“Used by Permission from the Author”

This is my favorite poem and especially at this time of my life when life issues are making demands and there are a lot of unknowns it’s particularly comforting.

In the darkest hour, I hope you would look to your Source as I have and trust as this poem tells us. It’s not what you see, it’s what you believe in your heart and how you align with it. It’s keeping the faith.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Volumes have been written about gratitude and what I write here might get lost with all of what has already been written. Having said that, I’ll write because it’s something I’m feeling at this time and believe it to be important. So, to end out the week let’s add more to the volumes and talk about Gratitude.

(Photo by Robert Aichinger aka Raichinger at www.sxc.hu.home)

Lately, I’ve been writing on things that have hit closer to home than I dare to admit (see previous posts 6 Ways to Overcome Adversity and 5 Ways to Find Peace) and I’ve felt the writing was speaking to my soul to teach and inform me as I put the words to paper. Again, the same is true on this post as I write about gratitude. I feel it is such a key component to our spiritual growth and how we develop.

We can practice all the proper steps of meditating, keeping our thoughts in check, affirming our intentions and more but if we aren’t in the right frame of mind while we’re practicing all of these things, it’s neutralized. Being in a state of humility and thankfulness whatever our situation should be our first approach to seeking guidance and answers not to mention the peace we feel.

As I look over my life I am thankful for:

the times someone came into my life just when I needed them

for the time when money appeared to put my mother to rest

an angel who scooped my daughter up before she hit the floor (see post Entertaining Angels Unawares)

a grandmother that I adored and showed me love and pointed me to spirituality

a family of my own – husband, children and grandchildren – all in good health and learning, growing and being who their supposed to be on the paths they have chosen

to live in the beauty and see the wildlife that is all around me in our home in the Rocky Mountains

to have a Creator that loves me and wants the best for me

my health and strength and ability to work and play

and much, much more….

Most of these I’ve written posts about – too many to reference them all here. But it’s not how the answers arrive or what we end up getting that is the point here. It’s knowing and feeling the love of a greater power and Source than what you see and that everything is going to be okay. The sweetness of that knowing means more than what is going on and that’s when you say, “thank you”, from the heart.

What are you truly thankful for at this juncture in your life? Are you in need of a miracle right now? The place to start is to humbly be thankful for this gift of life that you have and all that you’ve been blessed with. Keep this in mind as you go into prayer with your requests, feel it and say……thank you.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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In the midst of confusion and chaos, hectic schedules (just writing these things stirs up stress) you can feel peace fading. But, isn’t that what our days look like. Add onto those things normal life issues of losing a loved one or a job and the stress can be unbearable. How in the midst of all this do we find PEACE – how do we walk on the water in the storm?

1. STOP AND BREATHE
Our whole bodies tense up when we’re stressed. Our minds flood with thoughts of “what if this” or “what if that” and if we don’t stop and take control of it we could be taken over. If you’re in a situation like that, just stop whatever you’re doing and close your eyes and take some deep breaths in and out, slowly. Almost immediately you can feel a sense of inner PEACE come over you and your mind begins to clear.

2. MEDITATE – PRAY
Quieting ourselves is one of the last things we want to do when our lives are turned upside down. We want to get out there and make things happen. We want to see results. But taking time to connect to our Source is important especially when there is unrest and disturbance. The practice of prayer and meditation gives us a point of origin. It centers us and helps put us back on track with an assurance that we’re not alone. It gives us PEACE.

3. CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS AND FOCUS ON SOMETHING POSITIVE
Sometimes when our thoughts get going it’s like a boulder coming down a mountain. If they’re allowed to run their course they take over. Find a passage that gives you peace and let’s you know you’re loved. Keep it in front of you saying it over and over like a mantra. Keep your environment positive surrounding yourself with positive people, music and information. Take charge of your thoughts and allow them only to bring you PEACE and let them transform your situation, your life.

4. TAKE YOURSELF OUT OF THE SITUATION – IF ONLY FOR A MOMENT
If you feel your situation is dragging you down, change the scenery. Go for a walk or a drive. Get out in the fresh air and breathe. Get involved doing something and before you know it the drama of the situation will have lifted and you feel hope and PEACE trickling in.

5. ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
In the middle of dismay and confusion, decide to focus on the things you’re grateful for and feel it in your heart. Continue to picture and remember all the times when you championed rough times and came out on top. Look at the little things you have been blessed with and the big things. Take a look around and consider who you are and all those you have in your life. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Ahh, there’s the PEACE.

PEACE is available to us all the time. It’s there and we can choose to see it and feel it and put it in the middle of our lives whether things are going well or they’re not. When you feel it’s missing take time to recapture its essence and beauty. It’s a gift for all of us.

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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Recently, Harry (aka Bigjohnbird) and I stumbled across each other on StumbleUpon and because we had a mutual interest in Scotland we struck up an e-mail conversation. On one of the pages of his favorites, I noticed a story he had written and asked if I could use it in writing a post. I wanted to talk about words and how they’re conveyed and expressed. They make a difference in the perceptions of our truth and how we present ourselves to one another and to the world.

Here it is:

-posted by harry aka Bigjohnbird on Feb 11, 2008 (on StumbleUpon)

A blind boy sat on the steps of a building with a hat by his feet. He held up a sign which said: “I am blind, please help.” There were only a few coins in the hat.

A man was walking by. He took a few coins from his pocket and dropped them into the hat. He then took the sign, turned it around, and wrote some words. He put the sign back so that everyone who walked by would see the new words.

Soon the hat began to fill up. A lot more people were giving money to the blind boy. That afternoon the man who had changed the sign came to see how things were. The boy recognized his footsteps and asked, “Were you the one who changed my sign this morning? What did you write?”

The man said, “I only wrote the truth. I said what you said but in a different way.”

What he had written was: “Today is a beautiful day and I cannot see it.”

Both signs told people the boy was blind. While the first sign simply said the boy was blind, the second sign pointed the fortunate ones to their positive possibilities.

Moral of the Story: Be thankful for what you have. Be creative. Be innovative. Think differently and positively. Invite the people towards good with wisdom.

This little story says so much in the importance of how we present ourselves, what we say and how we say it in order to get our message across effectively. It’s not just in our writing; it’s in everyday life in how we share with others our truth – what we’re all about. This man showed the blind boy how to state what he needed in a way that included the people walking by. They can’t relate to him in what it’s like to be blind but they can see the beautiful day. The words were simply and beautifully rewritten in a way as to join not separate.

There’s another point to think about in the importance of how our words are relayed and perceived. I think what’s confusing for us is that sometimes the words we read or hear don’t match what we see in body language; or the essence of what is supposed to be coming across in writing doesn’t match the words – it’s all jumbled up. For some reason, we hold back and stop the energy flowing from our true selves. We don’t fully tell the story of what’s going on, there’s a piece reserved. You don’t get that message from Stephen and Phil in using words to connect and inspire. In his latest post and interview with Phil Gerbyshak, Stephen Hopson who writes for the Adversity University blog expressed it perfectly when he said, “I don’t have the exact words for this, but something magical takes place when we dedicate ourselves to make the connection with others and in the process close the gap that society places upon us. Somehow when we see those gaps narrow, even a little bit, we feel uplifted. We feel like we matter. We feel like we’re actually making a difference. Yes, that’s what I’m trying to say. We want to feel as if what we are doing is making an impact not only on others but also on ourselves.”

Last Sunday, on a TV show called Sunday Morning we watched a piece on this new, young conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Gustavo Dudamel, a native of Venezuela. What came across the screen was someone with passion and life, not holding anything back with how he communed with the music, and through his conducting you could feel what he was feeling. The power and expression of his conducting connected everyone to the music.

So, what is this story telling us along with being kind and lending a hand? It’s telling us that our words are an extension of our truth and that there are many ways to share them and use them to engage others. Be fully expressive of who you are and not hold back, even a little, in letting the world know what you’re about and how you want to engage and connect to them.

From the kitchen table – Pat
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