Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder. Today’s quote is:
The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance. — Nathaniel Braden
Wouldn’t it be refreshing if we could somehow not focus on whether something SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be happening to us?
I think making the choice to accept what is and release what was is a spiritual practice. However, it involves all aspects of our lives–intellectual, emotional, and physical. It looks like this…instead of shrinking away from what is occurring in this day and each day, we learn to embrace it.
In her book, Broken Open, Elizabeth Lesser, described spiritual teacher and world renowned speaker/author, Ram Dass searching for words while recovering from a stroke. “I began to fill in the blanks for him. After one such awkward exchange, he turned to me, and out popped one of his one-liners: “I speak more slowly now. Now people finish my sentences and answer their own questions.”
Elizabeth did the same, finished his sentences in response to her questions about his stroke and its aftermath. In doing so, she answered most of the questions herself.
Ram Dass began to see his stroke as ‘fierce grace.’ He said, “For me to see the stroke as grace required a perceptual shift. It was a shift from taking the point of view of the Ego to taking the point of view of the Soul…..What changed from the stroke was my attachment to the Ego. The stroke was unbearable to the Ego, and so it pushed me into the Soul level…faith and love are stonrger than any changes, stronger than aging and, I am very sure, stronger than death.”
How have you successfully dealt with change, especially the fierce grace kind?
PHOTO: Octopus at the Mote Marine Lab, Sarasota, Florida
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Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder. Today’s quotes are:
“Burning desire to see or do something gives us staying power-a reason to get up every morning or to pick ourselves up and start in again after a disappointment.”–Marsha Sinetar
“Desire is the starting point of all achievement, not a hope, not a wish, but a keen pulsating desire which transcends everything.”–Napoleon Hill (1883-1970)
Today was my first appointment at the Italian Consulate Office in Chicago to apply for dual citizenship with Italy. I have never sat in more uncomfortable seats in my life. They were metal bars on the seats and backs that left deep creases in my body. There was a steady stream of people arriving for visas, passports, citizenship and other things.
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Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder. Today’s quote is:
There’s a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in …Leonard Cohen
I heard these words on the radio several weeks ago, jotted down the line from the song, and it kept floating through my days, like a hot air balloon that got stuck in a tree somewhere. It’s so true. There’s a crack right now. A dear friend and mentor passed away last week, very suddenly. Her New Years card sent the 2nd week in January said “Happy Enlightened New Year. Call me at this number. “ I tore out the part of the card that included the number, and left it on the shelf above my blue kitchen desk for 5 months. Everyday I looked at it and left it there because I knew when I had a moment I was going to sit with a cup of tea and talk with her.
Then a few weeks ago, I decided to clean off my shelf. I added her cell number to my cell phone, so I would always have it with me. I realize now that throwing away the torn card coincided with her going into the hospital.
I don’t regret that I didn’t call in time to talk with her. It just was one of those things. What I focus on is her sparkling eyes, giggles, and laughter. I’ll always be grateful to her because she turned me on to my coaching career by bringing the Option Method into my life in 1991, then introduced me to Mandy Evans, who I then studied with for many years.
Karling’s gift of teaching and inspiring others reached around the world. She taught meditation from Hawaii to Spain and places in between. Her new years letters were filled with names of all of her 10 children and stepchildren, their spouses, children, grandchildren and how she and her husband had visited most of them that year.
There’s a crack in my heart, but the light is coming in. Broken open, broken free. She will always represent fullness of life, love and laughter. I feel her presence very tangibly. I know I felt the essence of St. Francis in his church in Assisi also . I wasn’t expecting to, especially since there were hoards of tourists stomping through the church, passing the pew where I sat crying soft tears. But it was clearly palpable.
Is it love that’s left behind? Love from the flash of light?
Karling drove to Chicago once with me, my husband, and my son. My son was 3 or 4 years old. When he asked how much longer and I said, 3 hours, he cried, “Oh my GAW” He had a little problem saying some letters like “D”. Karling roared with laughter from the back seat she was sharing with him. It was our personal joke whenever she and I were together, and something outrageous happened, we’d look at each other and say, “Oh my GAW!”
I did call her to give her my love, but later found out she had already made the transition. I left a message.
If you’re thinking of getting in touch with a loved one, do it now. If everything has a crack, then may lots of light come into your space..
How have you allowed the light to enter after you have dealt with death of a loved one?
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Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder. Today’s quote is from humanitarian, Lynn Twist, pictured on the right with me in Fairfield, Iowa.
“When a tree falls in Brazil, there is less oxygen in Ohio.”
Lynn is the bestselling author of The Soul of Money and co-founder of the Pachamama Alliance. I had the privilege of taking a long walk with Lynn and my visiting friend and New York Times best selling author, Marci Shimoff, on the walking trails along the lake in my hometown of Fairfield, Iowa. Lynn was visiting our town because she was receiving the Mayor Malloy’s humanitarian award. I found Lynn to be the most genuine down-to-earth yet global thinker I’ve ever met.
Lynn has spent more than three decades working in positions of leadership with many global initiaves including: ending world hunger, protecting the woldks rainforests, empowering indigenous peoples, inproving health, economic, and political conditions for women and children, and advancing the scientific understanding of human consciousness.
She has had many teachers in her life. In addition to being trained by Mother Theresa, some of Lynn’s great teachers are the people she meets in third world countries. For instance, she traveled to Ethiopia during the 1984 famine that killed 1 million people. (more…)
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Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
I am a life coach who asks questions to individuals who come to me with questions. Each of us has the answers within ourselves and we are our own best expert, but we don’t always realize it. Have you ever found yourself asking others for advice, and then you sift through it, and decide whether or not to act on their ‘brilliant’ advice? Often, it’s just our doubts and fears that block our clarity and creativity. Those doubts and fears can be questioned. (more…)
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Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
My thought for this Thursday is about happiness, In fact, 10 thoughts to be exact, expressed in Top 10 happiness quotes I’ve chosen from my happiness archives. In my coaching and teaching experiences I find that many people use unhappiness to motivate themselves, whether they realize it or not. So often I hear, ” I don’t want to be happy, I just want to attract my perfect partner, then I can be happy.” It’s as though being happy first is not even an option. By staying unhappy, they think they will be more acutely aware, and vigilant in their search. If they were happy now, they’d forget that they wanted to find an ideal partner, and just be in lala land and alone. Why would they forget what they wanted, if they were happy?
What do you think?
We sometimes become accustomed to thinking that we have to get something from outside us in order to be happy. In truth, it works the other way. We can contact our inner Source of happiness, no matter what partner is in our life or not in the picture.
Here are 10 quotes to inspire happiness.
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photo: Earth rising over the Moon
Thoughtful Thursday: Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of
us to ponder.
Today’s Quote is:
As soon as you trust yourself you will learn to live….
–Friedrich von Schiller
Elizabeth Gilbert is a creative writer and the author of Eat, Pray, Love and has recently spoken about creativity on TED. “As stated on their website, “TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. This TED site makes the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes.”
I’ve heard from so many individuals that they are afraid of the work they were put on this earth to do. It may be too hard, or too much work, or just unclear. What about creative ventures make us afraid? For some reason, over the years, creativity and suffering are often linked. Maybe in the creative process, we don’t believe we are “doing it right.” What do you mean by right? How would you know if it was “right?”
Elizabeth Gilbert’s suggestion is “that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line.”
If you can just trust that still small voice within, and follow your passion or impulse to create, you begin to trust ‘the process’ which is a part of ‘yourself.’ Whether it’s to create words, art, a garden, a family, or ideas, a birth is occurring within you. Revere yourself at least as the vessel through which the creativity is flowing through.
Elizabeth Gilbert ended her talk encouraging us “Don’t be afraid. Just show up for your piece of it…..it’s okay just to have the love and stubbornness to keep showing up! We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way. As the great poet Jack Gilbert said once to a young writer, when she asked him for advice about her own poems: “Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say YES.”
Listen and be inspired to hear the talk and 400 other fascinating talks on TED.
How do you use your creative process? Do you trust yourself? Is it okay to trust yourself even if you make mistakes?
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Thoughtful Thursday: Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
“The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” – Charles Dubois
I noticed that “Blogher of the Week” Award was given to Tangobaby2 for the article about the young mother and 3 children who were homeless on the streets of San Francisco looking for a safe place to stay, escaping from domestic violence. My questions immediately were, “Where is HER mother, grandmother, extended family? How did she end up so alone? What happened to the city shelters?” Aren’t you confounded that this happens in the United States? I am.
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Thoughtful Thursday: Every Thursday I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
Worry is a state of mind based on fear –Napoleon Hill
3 Steps to Take to Be Worry Free:
1.) Just do the highest action possible. I’ve inherited the worry gene from one of my Italian grandmothers. But just because we’re born with a tendency doesn’t mean we have to keep it. I’ve spent my adult life changing that genetic code by changing my thoughts/beliefs. The shift in beliefs in turn change my DNA or happiness set point. I try to follow the advise from my friend, Jonas who says. “If anything bad is going to happen, it’s going to happen without me aiding and abetting it with my attention.”
2.) Stay in the moment. Don’t try to control every little thing and everything a person says or does. Try planning less. Create more flexibility in our lives when we allow more spontaneity to find a place.
3.) Co-operate with the inevitable. Accept more. As Dale Carnegie said, “If you know a circumstance is beyond your power to change or revise, say to yourself: ‘It is so; it cannot be otherwise.’
Put a ’stop-less’ order on your worries. Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth–and refuse to give it anymore.”
It takes small shifts. Do you have steps to share that help you to be worry free?
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
“When a person’s desire outweighs his fear, success becomes inevitable” ~Unknown
Every Thursday is Thoughtful Thursday when I post a quote or thought for all of us to ponder.
10 Ways to Handle Fear:
1.) Create clarity by questioning your limiting beliefs and the fear. A limiting belief is based on fear not truth. Understanding and clarifying the fear is helpful. The ’snake’ you see may really be a rope. (more…)
Lenora's Italy Retreat blog | Lenora's Change Limiting Beliefs Website
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