Choosing to Live or Die Each Day

I came to the realization at a point in my own live several years ago that I was dying each day to the idea of how someone else thought I should live my life.  Wow! 

Are you doing that? 

Do you put other people’s ideas of you above your own? 

Whose life are you living? 

Keep the flashlight on, keep looking for your own voice and listen to the wisdom of your soul.  

This is your day to live!

Courage

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt
1884-1962, American First Lady, Columnist, Lecturer, Humanitarian

I look forward to spending the weekend with 24 amazing human beings!  Pictures on Monday!

“Old Habits of Thinking”

” Old habits of thinking stick around, often for an entire lifetime, largely because you create internal reasons to reinforce and maintain them. These reasons, which I’m calling “excuses,” can become permanently lodged in your subconscious– They  are labels you have placed on yourself that ultimately become you self-definition.”  Dr. Wayne Dyer

It is Wednesday my friends, keep your light on, keep your focus on this awareness that you are creating now and will be expanding on this weekend (if you are participating in the retreat). 

Look at the labels you have put on yourself. 

 Are they your beliefs about yourself? 

Look at that belief system? 

What do you believe to be the truth about yourself?

 If you can’t answer that question, don’t worry, you will be able to by Sunday afternoon!  For all of you that feel like you are missing out on something very special?  Well, you are! 

The next intensive Forgetting 2 Remember Seminar is scheduled for July 16-18.  Go to www.forgetting2remember.com to register!

Is your flame burning out?

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all.  Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle.The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

 

We are again at another day closer to this weekend’s seminar.  Where have you let your flame burn out?  Why? 

Where is the hero is side yourself?  Can you even recognize it?

Keeping your light on, keeping present to the process of beginning to open up your soul and find yourself again.

Whether you are a participant on this weekend’s retreat or not the same opening can happen when you choose to “see” and discover your true self. 

What a blessing “seeing”or  discovering can be.

The Game of “LIFE”

 

Why do we place so much pressure on ourselves to prove that we have it all together?

What is so wrong with being real and honest and sharing that we don’t always have all the right answers?

We are all human beings on this journey doing the same thing-trying to get by, trying to make a living, raising our families, trying to make a marriage work, trying to prove to everyone around us that we have it all!

I, as a Life Coach, friend, sister, wife, mother, and stepmother have never had it all together nor have I met anyone that does. 

We walk around pretending that “everything is fine.” Is it?

What would happen if we all dropped the ego, the pride, and just became real in our relationships with others?

Remember the game of “LIFE?”  In that game you pick your career, get your salary, head to the chapel and get married, pass a few spaces and start filling up the car with pink or blue pegs(children).  You spin the wheel again hoping to land on a good spot that lets you continue to move forward, all with the hope of having the biggest house and the most money at the end of the game.

How is that working for you?

Where are you in this game?

What would happen if you stopped playing and really started living?

It is not too late to join us for the May21-23, July16-18 or the October 1-3 intensive weekend retreats.

Are you ready to get real?

Don’t Believe Everything…

I once found a bumper sticker that read: “Don’t believe everything that you think!” 

“Most people spend their entire life imprisoned with in the confines of their own thoughts.  They never go beyond a narrow, mind-made, personalized sense of self that is conditioned by the past.”  Eckhart Tolle – Stillness Speaks.

What if we stop that thought, choose a different one, change the narrow, mind-made perception and expand the vision?   What more can you “see” and understand? 

How will your day change when YOU stop believing everything that YOU think? 

 Now, that is something to think about!

From The Wisdom of Enzo….

The last blog I introduced you to a book that I’m reading ” Art of racing in the rain.” As I said this whole book is from the insight and wisdom of Enzo, a dog. It is an amazing story and so hard to put down and get to the real business of the day.Enzo says, ” People, like dogs, love repetition. Chasing a ball, lapping a course in a race car, sliding down a slide. Because as much as each incident is similar, so it is different.”

How is that dance showing up for you?

Well this dog got me thinking about the love of repetition or in other words the love of knowing what is happening next, being in control. Our desire to just let it happen and stay on the surface of life. It makes it so much easier than mixing it up or stepping outside that familiar box. But Enzo is so right in the fact that even in that repetition there is a difference. That difference is in each of us. Embrace the dance of similar and difference.

The Domino Effect

The domino effect is a chain reaction that occurs when a small change causes a similar change nearby, which then will cause another similar change, and so on in linear sequence.

A beautiful lady shared a story with me today about a contest involving dominoes. This contest took place in Las Vegas. There were three groups in a race to build the biggest and the best structure. Each started out with great enthusiasm building quickly and accurately their creations. In the end an enormous castle with a fence and trees and bridges was built. The castle was elegant and elaborate with every detail imaginable. People were in awe!

After being on view for a while the builder wanted to watch the chain reaction of their structure, so out of the crowd they chose a small older lady to come a push a domino to start the effect. Though she was hesitant in her desire to touch the castle, they encouraged her to just touch a domino on the fence and she did. Within seconds the fence dropped one by one and then the trees, the bridges, and with great momentum the castle released itself piece by piece. The noise from the collapse was so loud the casino went quiet looking to see what had happened.

She went on to talk about how we are dominoes in each other’s lives. A small word, a warm hug, and fresh view can start a spiral of change that never has to come to an end.

What kind of domino are you?

What is your rippled effect in this world?

Change is a blessed part of life if indeed we reach for the place within ourselves that gets touched and embrace the journey, sometimes slowly one by one, and at other times the change comes with great momentum. Hold on tightly, your domino effect can change the world.

Let’s all start building our castles today!

Doing what we have always done.

What comes from that “doing”?  The sameness!  The effort it takes to change a habit is not for the faint of heart.  The commitment has to be an everyday awareness and process of watching yourself for the sameness to appear and then in that “catch” do something different.

It is that flashlight continually shining at yourself and being on guard for that same old habit to reappear and stopping it in its tracks. 

 What happens is we tire of the watching and little by little let go of the new awareness’ that have changed our direction and slowly ease back into the easy chair and turn on the old familiar show, only again to find ourselves doing what we have always done. 

How do we stay aware, keep on growing, and make changes that will last a lifetime and change the course of our tomorrow? 

Share with me what keeps you moving forward.  What keeps you coming back for more growth?

….Later, Really? Guest Blogger, Jessica Wilch

Last Thursday evening I had a speaking engagement for a group of women at a wine tasting party.  They were all friends and golf on the same league.  I have never attempted wine tasting (them) and self-awareness speaking (me) at the same time.  At the end of the evening I had done a good job at explaining to them how golf and life are one in the same.  How you show up for your golf game is no different than how you show up for life.  Even with some pretty “glassy eyes” I think they got it. 

Driving home I called my dear friend, Website Designer and sounding board, Jessica Wilch.  I was telling her how this group was much different than groups that I have spoken to in the past and that I was exhausted!  I told her that there was no way that I could go home and still do a blog for Friday.  She laughed and suggested I just do a “…Later.”  I got home opened up “Oscar” (My computer, yes he has a name!  Doesn’t your computer have a name?) and typed in “…Later.” I found a beautiful picture of a milk weed seed flying through the air and said, “Have a great weekend, I will talk to you again Monday.

Well, I will be darned, a comment came through on my “…Later” blog Friday morning!  What would someone have to say about that blog?  My dear friend Jessica which has NO ability at all to write (she lies to me all the time) sent in the following comment:

I remember an incident where a child was attending school and while sitting in class decided he had to go to the bathroom. So, after a bit of struggling and resisting the urge he raised his hand and gently waved it. The teacher thinking that the student was trying to be funny looked at the student and said out loud, “Later”. The student put his hand down in anguish.

After 10 minutes had gone by, the student was really in trouble and needed to be excused to go to the bathroom. He raised his hand once again. The teacher thinking again that the student was going to be a problem looked at the young child and said, “Later”. The student once more in total disbelief put his hand down.

Another 10 minutes went by and without warning the student stood up and walked up to the teacher. The teacher was astounded at what she saw as the student had relieved himself out of sheer frustration and pain. The teacher, alarmed and shocked, looked at the student and said, “What happened to you?” The student without pause, simply looked at the teacher as he excused himself and said, “Later”.

I was laughing so hard by the time I was done reading it that I was almost crying.   So thank you Jessica, my dear friend, Website Designer, sounding board and excellent writer for sharing your comments with me!