Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Living a Simpler Life

Living a simple life isn't as simple as it sounds.

What if I told you that you couldn't have anymore of anything... no more friends, no more money, no more anything until you first got happy with what you have?
Easy to change,
The Universe


p.s. If you're not happy with what you've got, it's hard to imagine that you're really thinking favorably on those things. The thoughts you think, perhaps unfavorably, limited, and afraid, are the ones that will receive priority in the manifestation of tomorrow. Uck.

The harshness of this message this morning kind of made me stop and think. Lately I've been spending a great deal of my energy focused on what I don't have, what I don't get, what I wish were my reality. I know your suppose to be thankful for where your at, for what you have - but there comes a time in your own life, when you just can't keep fighting anymore. When nothing seems to go your way and absolutely nothing seems to turn out right and you just don't seem to have a place and those proverbial doors your suppose to be able to open are locked, dead bolted and you just can't do it.

You need people around you to be the "doors", to be the people you can turn to in these times and just know that they are there for you, they get you, they don't judge you. They just hold your hand and walk with you until you find a door that will open. A good friend will do that for you and then in turn you will do that for them. You need these kinds of people in your life, you need those people that you know in your heart, you can turn to in any type of situation and they are always there.

Do we complicate our own lives by trying to fight a losing battle all the time? Are we preventing our own self from living a simpler life?

Monday, March 22, 2010

Learning to leap

There is that old saying Leap and the net will appear. That statement has power and at some point in life we all have to take that chance, that risk and go.

I only remember it happening one time to me and it was mostly because I wasn't even thinking about it, I just did it. I just did what I needed/wanted to and suddenly I realized, there was a net....holding me close and I felt good and safe....for a short while. I think once I realized it, I got scared and that's when I found the hole in the net and boom....down I came.

Maybe that's what we are suppose to do in life, not think about it, just leap. I mean that's obviously where that saying originated from....leap and the net will appear. We get conditioned in life however to doubt, to fear, to not trust that the net will indeed be there. We get burned one too many times by people, life, our heart and suddenly we become so distrustful of our own soul. Can you imagine the power we could have over our own life if we trusted ourselves first?

I always want to leap. I have these grand ideas that flow through my head most of the night and then in the light of day, reality sets in and I cave, I give into the life I have and move on, forgetting all that I hoped for in the night. It's hard to live the life you want, crave, desire when y you are the soul provider. There is not fall back plan, no nest egg, no insurance if I don't work for "the man". No benefits, no vacation days, no one but me to take care of me so I cave, I put on my corporate gear and trudge off to a soul killing place and begin my days all over again, and again and again.

It's not as bad as I make it seem, it's just that it's the same thing everyday, no real change. Always fighting the same losing battle over and over and although sometimes the players change, it's still the same battle. Just kind of exhausting to the soul.

So I wait...I wait to leap. It will happen, it's about timing...timing is everything. I know the net will be there when I am ready...it's always there just waiting for me to learn to leap.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Another chance

Why is it once something is over, some event is done, a relationship ends or a argument passes we always think of a better way to handle it. Or think of something more we could have done, said or acted? Why does it always feel "too late"?

Given another chance, would we really take more risks? Knowing what we know after the fact, would we have or could we have tried harder? Is it possible to avoid the regret that comes with the thinking of what might have been?

Lately sleep has not been my friend. I spend so much of my day running around doing for everyone else. Helping, assisting, fixing their issues, making everyone else's life better whether it be at work or at home....but the problem I am realizing is that no one, not even myself, accomplish that for me. What about me? When do I become the priority in my own life?

I realize the job I have and the life I have chosen to live allows this to become my reality but at some point something has to give back....give to me some little moment.....how do you make that happen? If thoughts become things then how much effort can I put into my thought process of what I need?

It's hard to ask for and get what we need. We start a life, a path, a chosen profession and at some point along the way we either embrace it or decide it's not for us and then what...we either continue to struggle through it depending on friends and family to keep talking us off the ledge or we at some point get brave and change paths.

Been there, done that...changed paths but it clearly wasn't right either...so I came back, sort of. I returned to the company and to different opportunities but still kind of the same. At some point though the old became....well, old. The same old - same old just isn't cutting it any more. If you aren't happy with your work it filters out into your own life and soon, like a cancer, it takes over your everything....and then you wake up exhausted, tired, worn to the bone wondering how it all fits together.

The Universe was full of infinite wisdom today:

The slate's been wiped clean, the past has released its grip, and before you sparkles eternity, yearning for direction. All that lies between you and the life of your dreams is just one teeny, tiny, gentle, little rule. Only one condition, prerequisite, principle that matters.

It's not love. It's not God. It's not fate, or luck, or karma. It's not complicated or esoteric, and you needn't sacrifice, plead, or pray to invoke it. It's the only rule that's ever existed, and it's the only one that will ever exist. No reality can exist in its absence. For its mere existence, you are. With its existence, the power, the light, and the way are revealed. It's your purpose to discover it, and it's your destiny to master it. It's the beginning, the middle, and the end. The Alpha and the Omega. The be-all and end-all of every wish, desire, and dream, and you are its keeper.

This caveat of all caveats is that absolutely nothing can be anything until it is first imagined. Thoughts become things, nothing else does. And so it's the thoughts you choose from here on out that will become the things and events of your life, forevermore. It is written in stone. There's no other way. It's your ticket to anywhere you can dream of. Your passport to abundance, health, and friendships. The key to the palace of your wildest dreams.

Your thoughts, and your thoughts alone, will set you in motion. Your thoughts will yield the inspiration, creativity, and determination you need. Your thoughts will orchestrate the magic and inspire the Universe. Your thoughts will carry you to the finish line if you just keep thinking them. Never give up. Never waiver, doubt, or ask.

Aim high.

The hardest work has been done. The wars have already been waged. The lessons have already been learned. The journey, now, is for home.

Sounds easy doesn't it. Now if I could just get my head to cooperate I can rule the world. .

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

No such thing as "the future"

The future is an illusion, a thought, a promise of something better to come our way. All we have is now, followed almost immediately by another and another and so on.

We don't do anything suddenly. We don't suddenly fall out of love...it happens slowly over the course of time. A set of now's. We don't suddenly become famous or a bank robber or a parent - it's all a series of little moments....little now's happening over and over until one day we arrive at that place. The place that makes us feel like it's all so sudden.

It's not just the negative things this happens with....it can happen with good things too, like being happy, finding peace, connecting with your soul mate. It's all series of moments that build into your now, your current state. We get what we get because of what we think. As TUT would say - thoughts become things, choose the good ones.

Sometimes the power of our thoughts is so amazing to me. We have such power and we don't even know it. We get what we get by focusing on the thought, the need, the want, the elusive missing piece. Our actions drive our results.

So I ask you....why don't we harness this? Why don't we use this? Why aren't we the rulers of our own world? How do we give our power away everyday to someone else. Why do I continue to fight the world every single day? How do I take my own destiny back and stop leaving it up to anyone else to control? How do we learn to be the masters of our own universe?

It feels like all I can do is focus on what I don't have. Where I think I should be vs. where I am. What everyone else seems to have but I don't. How do we learn to live in the moment, to take what the Universe has given us and enjoy?

Those who achieve great things, defeat long odds, and become legends didn't have anything you don't have. They just kept showing up, expecting a miracle, long after everyone else got practical.
Here comes one now!
The Universe

If I am to believe the Universe, then really....I just have to keep on showing up - expecting my miracle, to keep on doing my thing and eventually, at some point, someday suddenly...things will change.

Do I dare believe the Universe?

Monday, March 15, 2010

Time - what's it all about

Time is never on your side. When your younger you rush to get older, when your older you TRY to be younger. No winning. At some point you have to just accept that what is .....is.

Sometimes when things take longer than you thought they would, it's just a gentle reminder from your greater self (me), that you have more time than you thought, and that there's a journey to enjoy.
Yeah, like all the time in the world.


The Universe


Besides, just because it's taking longer than you thought it would, doesn't mean stuff isn't happening, even as you read these words.

Ever have a weekend where you just can't get motivated to do anything of your own, your own personal stuff. Like laundry, cleaning, rearranging, purging, cooking, shopping...nothing...you can't get motivated to do anything. Why does that happen? What hits the wall when we literally can't get our butts moving?

I know for me personally it's a combination of things. I do too much, I try to squeeze to much into one day. My day's usually start quite early even on weekends. This weekend was my weekend to work so I am up and moving at 7am. Hard for me to go back to bed once I'm up. Unless I have some reason to be all snuggled up with someone I often don't return to bed. Some days I am uber motivated to get stuff done. Laundry, shopping, cleaning, purging, handling all the things I keep putting on the back burner all week hoping I'll find the time once I get home to handle them, but usually it gets pushed back to "tomorrow". Soon however, all my tomorrows pile up and it becomes over whelming. Too much to do and suddenly that wall is staring me in the face.

This weekend though I really did accomplish quite a bit but I don't know how to solve my non-sleep issues. I thought it was my coffee in take, but I've limited that, then I thought it was my not being able to relax thing....but I'm doing Yoga now....sometimes twice a week, and now I just can't pin point the real issue.

How do you make your mind slow down or stop? Can you really shut the world out and just be zen?

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Trying to pray

What does it mean to pray? It is in quiet reflection and thought or is it in the loud, hand clapping soul releasing sound that makes us shout and jump around? How do you learn to pray?

It's a very individual process but I beleive at some point we have to try....try and connect with some higher power, some greater being or some spirit that is bigger than our own self. Something that gives us the will and the strength to get up each day and do this thing we call life over and over and over again.


I always think there has to be a bigger reason for me to be here than to just take up space. I feel like I insert myself into life loudly and proudly as if to say I am here, notice me and do not let me go by unnoticed. That unnoticed life....that's what I think I fear the most.



I love this quote from Salma Hayek - Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.


It makes me feel like someone out there, some one I don't even know, understands what it's like to try to live a life outside of ourselves.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Everything makes you better

Trying to see the glass as half full is really hard. All I can see some days is what I don't have. My coffee is half gone, my wine is almost empty.....my martini is empty. It's a real trick to train your brain and your heart to think the other way.

The Universe tells me this today: When something difficult or painful happens, always look to see what it makes possible that wouldn't have otherwise been possible. Like a new adventure, a closer friendship, or chocolate in your peanut butter.

I think sometimes we get so bogged down in the why's of our life and the how's and we forget about the DOING.....

If something sucks in your life right now, ask yourself, "What is the lesson or the gift?" As soon as you figure that out, it will have served its purpose and will move on.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Kodak Moment

I've talked about the importance of photographs to me before. I love those little snippets of time where things were just as I imagined. I was happy, surrounded by people I love and who loved me. Happy moments or seconds that are forever frozen in time with the click of a button.

Looking back, those are moments I accepted fully without question. They often bring me great joy, sometimes sadness because the person is gone or the relationship has changed or whatever the reason, it's no longer the same...but regardless, the ones I save, the ones I frame and hang up or choose to surround myself with are moments of immeasurable joy. Wish I could bottle that and open it whenever I wanted.

Ideally who wouldn't want to take all those moments and string them together and just live in those happy, fun, silly moments? I know...the reality is that nothing lasts forever and just when your feeling happy and content with the way things are The Universe steps in to shake things up and toss you some curve balls and you begin again....always changing, always moving, always something.

There is something to be said for the same old routine. I envy that in other people. Those who have a set way about themselves...sometimes the predictability of others is something I am jealous of. Not sure I could happily live that way for long, but the very thought of some common everyday routine does give me some kind of peace.

I like certain routines....like getting a hot cup of coffee first thing in the morning. I know that each day at about 10 am I need a snack. I know that I can always count on the fact that there are certain people I can always count on when I need something...I don't have to even question that they will help......so I guess, I have some routines...I have some common denominator.

It's funny, when we look at people's life through a second in time, a picture, we imagine all kinds of amazing things happening for them.....to them....we forget to take into account that just like me, they have Kodak moments as well as normal everyday life moments.

Perhaps we are all the same...but different?

Monday, March 1, 2010

We never know

I like that saying "we don't know what we don't know".

I always wonder how things will change...where they will go. What do we do with all this stuff in us that has become our routine, our life, our everyday stuff when things change.

I get up, get dressed, go to work, get coffee, go to my desk, do my job, come home, work....and so on and so forth but when life tosses us a wrench in the plans, when things change without our CHOOSING to make the change what do we so with all the ....stuff?

I go along my life path, mostly enjoying the ride and suddenly something comes along that makes me think differently or makes me act differently and just as I get used to that, it changes again. All of a sudden I'm left holding the proverbial bag. Feels like I'm always the one standing there like that scene in Poltergeist when that teenage girl comes home to witness her house imploding and her family running for their lives and she's standing there screaming...."what's happening?"

What's happening?

I know life is all about change and it's part of the reality of my own life but what we don't know yet is how this change will effect us down the road....we just don't know what we don't know.

We don't yet know the souls we will meet who might become such a huge part of our life, we don't know that we won't connect with another person in a way that we can't imagine a day in our life without them.....or that person we meet that teaches us some life lesson about our own self. I was pondering this today as I thought back to last year.

I was writing an article comparing our companies sales to last year at this same time and it made me think of my own life in those terms. Last year at this same time my life was moving in such a different direction, it's surprising to me how quickly that changes gears. I can hardly wrap my brain around these things fast enough. Where I am at now compared to the same time last year is so very different. It's not bad or good, it just is. It is so very different. Makes me wonder what next year at this very time will be. The Universe piped in with this saying today:

Right this very moment, there are beautiful souls on your beautiful planet, whom you do not even know, yet through your meanderings and theirs, paths will cross, love will be shared, and eternal friendships will be created. I'm still not done...

We are really the only ones who have any control over our own life and/or path but we let others join us for the ride or guide us onto new paths. I feel like we have to learn to take the steering wheel and gain control of where we go and how we get there.

Hang on, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.