Tag Archive | inspirational post

The Width of An Eyelash

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Sometimes the difference between what we want

and what we fear is the width of an eyelash.

~Jay McInerney

This was a great quote from the movie, The Second Exotic Marigold Hotel, but when I looked it up, it was quoted by Jay McInerney.  The quote touched me deeply and I wanted to share it with you.  For like many people, I have stood in fear, wanting something and yet frozen as to how to proceed.  I think it’s something we all deal with in our lives.  We make millions of different decisions a day, some small and some enormous and our lives reflect the decisions we make.  I’ve heard people lament that they don’t have what they want and yet I observe that they don’t fight the fear to push through to make their wants a reality. It’s hard to do.  I know.  But this quote gave me hope.  For if it’s a width of an eyelash between what we want and what we fear, then it’s not a far jump to realize our desires.  Don’t you think?

Shine On!

xo

The Power in Patting Your Heart

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I want you to sit quietly for a moment.  Close your eyes.  Lay your hand, palm down on your heart.  Breathe for a moment, quietly sinking into a feeling of peace.  Then I want you to gently ‘pat your heart twice’ for me.

Feel the magic in connecting with your heart and soul.

Just like in yesterday’s post about I Remember You, when you pat your heart to someone else, you expand that soul to soul connection for which there are no words except to say, “you are in my heart.”  It’s powerful my friends.  It’s even essential, dare I say it.

So once again, I connect my heart with yours and I pat my heart twice in gratitude for our loving connections and for the beautiful way in which our souls rejoice in meeting!  You are loved.  You are in my heart.  I remember you.

Shine On!

xo

Below is a song I want you to sing to yourself today…

A Little Advice

treeNever cut a tree down in the wintertime.

Never make a negative decision in the low time.

Never make your most important decisions

when you are in your worst moods.

Wait.

Be patient.

The storm will pass.

The spring will come.

~ Robert H. Schuller

Every Sunday morning, my Mom would watch The Crystal Cathedral with Robert Schuller on TV.  I remember it well because his closing statement was, “God loves you and so do I,” which I always found comforting.  So being that it’s a Sunday, I thought I’d give you a little reminder from one of my favorite childhood memories.

God loves you and so do I.

Shine On!

xo

Grow Your Own Sunshine

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This little Light of Thine…go ahead and let it SHINE!

For awhile now, I have ended every post with the phrase Shine On!  It was on a whim that I began that phrase, not meaning any more than to hope you would feel uplifted and empowered by it.  I realized today after helping a friend that there is more to it for me.  In fact, the Universe is giving me signals these days for on Mother’s Day I was given a cd of music entitled, “Shine On.”  So I thought I should write about what it means to me.

We are meant to Shine On, to embrace our light and to allow it to Shine On all with whom we come into contact.  Surely there may be people, who like the planets which orbit our sun, who may turn away from our light.  There may be those who can only experience our sun self’s warmth for small lengths of time.  But who doesn’t rejoice in the warmth of sunshine?  Who doesn’t feel the positivity in the sun’s radiance?  Who doesn’t thrive and grow in the light of the sun?

Your powerful sun self warms the world around you.  Your growth mixed with the growth of others, allows the Universe to expand its positivity and optimism.  Hope extends like a halo around your goodness and love radiates in waves of light on all those with whom you connect, with whom you come into contact, with whom you touch.  It is in this way that I caution you to not dim your light and I urge you to seize your power!  You do no good in the world when you play small and lessen your power.  When you do not own the power of positivity within you, when you do not share it, when you hide it away in the smallness of your world, you lessen yourself and others.  You must enlighten yourself and the world around you in the way you are meant to which is to play big!  What if our sun decided to just play small and not expand?  Would there be as much growth here on Earth?  Or would we all suffer because the sun didn’t want to shine as much as she could?    What if in connecting on a larger more international scale we could help our seeds of light grow, expand and develop?  Wouldn’t that be grand?!

Sure it requires a change of mindset to expand our sun self’s rays of light.  It necessitates our stretching out of our comfort zones in order to shine brighter.  It demands that we own the power within us and push forth into the world with our knowing and our innate love in order to connect with others.   It demands that we are in touch with ourselves and with others in order to experience the light.   One may even find that uncertainty and fear begin their rays of darkness when we decide to extend forward and to shine.  That’s ok.  It’s always darkest before dawn ~ and there is always dawn.

So the next time you read Shine On! please take the request to allow your light to

Shine On

and benefit the whole world with your unique love and light!

xo

Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around!

moonLook Up, Look Down, Look All Around!*

How aware are you of your surroundings?  For most of us, we are aware of our surroundings when we are walking in the big city or when we are actively looking for something or someone.  But during the course of your daily life, do you ever just simply stop and look up?  It’s Springtime where I live and the grass is a fervent green with much pollen covering the earth.  Flowers are beginning to pop their colorful heads up, showcasing their beauty.  It seems like even the birds are singing sweeter songs today.  In fact, it feels like the Earth is joyously blossoming and all can feel the loving vibrations.

Do you feel it too?

I’m a sky watcher.  Years ago, I decided to make it a daily habit look up to the colorful skies, to look down to see and feel the Earth and to stop and take a moment to look around at the palette Mother Nature has used in every season.  I take a deep breath with a moment of silence to commune with nature.  I breathe in the smells of the season and today I was gifted with the fragrant lilac bush that my neighbor has blooming.  That simple sweetness tickles my nose and my senses and immediately brings a smile to my face.  It happens every day for me.  I find something in Nature that just makes me spontaneously smile without thinking.  Yesterday I was gifted with seeing one of our koi jump (for joy?) clear out of the pond 3 separate times.  A big grin flashed across my face as I hurried to get my camera (and sadly missed the moment), but it’s one that I will remember.

I look up, I look down and I look all around.  Why you may ask?  Well, it’s Nature’s Gift to all of us, it’s free and…

It picks up my spirit, it nourishes my senses, it restores peace to my soul.

A triple win!  Try it yourself!  Let me know how it goes!

Shine On!

xo

*Photo above taken in the late afternoon when the moon (pink arrow) had just emerged into view

 

What are you doing with your sadness?

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How many times have these words crossed your your mind or been uttered by your lips?  How many times have you felt that life’s circumstances have treated you unfairly?  And what did you do about it?  Or better yet, what are you doing about it?  Are you wallowing in a heap of self-pity pooled with tears and ‘why me’s?’  Or have you dissolved into anger and resentment?  Perhaps you have evolved into a place where you can see that circumstances occur, it is what it is and you’ve moved on?

What are you doing with your sadness?

Death, illness, poverty, depression, lack of love, crimes, and violence can all bring sadness into our lives.  At times, these circumstances can feel as though they are breaking our souls and tempt our resolves to live our lives to their fullest potential.  They change us in ways in which we cannot imagine.  They are paths which we take which are many times not how we’d imagined our lives to be.  But the one thing for certain is this:  we have choices throughout these paths and we are not alone.  It is in these periods of time that we have choices which can change our lives.  By reaching out of our comfort zones we can connect with others to help heal ourselves.  We can take on the fighting spirit which lies within us, that strength that you possibly never knew you had inside at your disposal when needed, and reach out of our troubles in order to heal ourselves.  It is never an easy task, but nor is is insurmountable.  It takes time, it takes patience.  It takes a willingness to expose the grief and to forgive, to find a new normal for ourselves and to pick ourselves up and to find the Presents in Presence.

I’ve wasted time myself.  Wasted precious moments in anger, resentment, sadness and stony unforgiveness.  I’ve wallowed in self-pity, berated myself for the cancer which broke my body, my spirit, my self-esteem and even my will to live.  I’ve grieved over the passing of loved ones, harboring in my shell of grief, shouldering the sadness of the world around me.  I have forgotten that little light of a soul inside of me who only wishes to be raised up to sparkle.  I have lost sight of my spirit inside of me and I forgotten that this is a journey of spirit and not of humanness as much.  I disconnected from my purpose and I turned my back on the experiences which have brought me to this moment of light.  I allowed the darkness to invade for a bit.  Luckily, my connections wouldn’t allow me to give up on my purpose nor my energy to inspire and I was given help to ignite that passionate loving, healing spirit to shine in my life.  Just as my light began to fade indeed, I was brought back to the beauty in life and I am forever grateful.

And this is why I tell you, I am your biggest fan.  We all need a hand to hold onto and another spirit to walk with us.  We require that connection in order to leapfrog with each other and to help pull ourselves out of the darkness when it happens.  And it does happen.  Life is not without strife sometimes, but it’s what you do with that sadness that counts.  Sure, the DASH is important, but it’s the Presents in Presence that marks the days, the years, the life that you live for as long as you are blessed to be here.

What do you create out of your sadness?  Where to do allow it to take you or do you lead?

For you see, none of us get out of this life alive and we’ve all been asked what are we doing with our lives.  We’ve heard about the dash ~ you know what that is, right?  The DASH between your birth year and your death year and what counts is what you do with that time.  But it’s the moments, the now, that I’m interested in because as we build on these nows, we build the important dash.  We choose to see the light, be a part of the light and we choose to shine and sparkle our own brand of light into the world.

You are never left without a choice.  Use it wisely.  If you chose darkness, you can still choose light now.  That’s how easy it is.  You can find your way out of that sadness.  You can choose to for a moment, now, to smile, even if you don’t feel much like doing it.  Let’s try it now.  Please?  For me?

Shine On!

xo

See the World With Loving Eyes

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He can call me a flower if he wants to!

This morning inspired by the first of Spring and by Tommia’s Tablet  I went in search of one of my favorite scenes in Bambi.  Do you recall this one?  If not, the scene is below and takes under a minute to guarantee you a smile this lovely morning.  It’s one of my favorites because I just adore Thumper and his giggly antics.  I also love the interplay between all 3 characters and how darling Bambi calls a skunk Pretty Flower…

Pretty Flower ~ how special to see others with a loving eye, don’t you think ~ to disregard labels and to just see them for who they are?  Of course, we know he’s a skunk, but the connotation of a stinky skunk is not relevant when we ‘see’ a pretty flower.

Imagine seeing everyone with loving eyes today.  It’s the first day of Spring! 

You can call everyone flower today!

Shine On!

xo

What is Courage?

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger,

misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good;

that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding

and that there is always tomorrow. – Dorothy Thompson

Some days I find myself aggravated with how things are going in my life.  And some days, I simply melt into the flow of my life without worry.  Does this happen to you?  Lately I’m finding inner peace within the confines of my thinking and expanding it outward in spherical circles.  It’s as if the Universe/Spirit/God is laying breadcrumbs of courage, of knowledge and of a-ha moments for me to find on my life path.  And it’s most certainly interesting, exciting and perhaps even shall I say, titillating!

I feel like I’m on fire ~ for what ~ I don’t exactly know.  But I don’t think I need to know yet, I think it’s still in pre-launch mode.  Launching 2014, laying the groundwork for the year ahead, going with the flow of where life will take me on this special journey.

Do you feel it too?  Can you get quiet and just be for a bit?  Live in the present moment as Eckhart Tolle reminds us to do…to find the gifts/presents in being present?  When I find that I am getting aggravated, I simply say, ‘present, presence’ as a gentle reminder for myself.  I could perseverate on the past, on conversations spoken, on deeds that are done and over-with, on the woulda coulda shouldas that have caused me pain.   I could pursue ‘what if’s’ for my future, planning, controlling, being obstinate with how I feel things should go.  Instead, I quietly turn my monkey brain around and just utter, ‘present, presence’ quietly and things just seem to not matter.

I’m not saying I don’t have long-term plans in place nor goals because I do.  I’ve imagined what I’d like for my life to look like this year and I’m ready to create something big!  But I’m also taking baby steps and allowing that red carpet ahead of me to roll out and help me on my way!

So do you have courage?  Can you remember that there’s a tomorrow?

Can you find the presence within?

Shine On!

xo

Fall Has Arrived…

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Fall has arrived.  Behold the changing leaves, and enjoy the crisp breeze.  Let your eyes take in the bursts of color.  Transformation is afoot and hope is in the air. ~ Unknown

Well this morning has proved to me that Autumn has arrived with certainty.  Yesterday Sissy and family came for dinner and she was humming a Christmas tune which has now settled in my brain.  ‘Tis the season and oh what fun it is to ride!  I love the chill in the air, the gem-colored falling leaves and the beginning to look a lot like Christmas feel to the air!  I am not in a hurry for ol’ Saint Nick to arrive.  I don’t rush the holiday season at all.  But I do adore the world when we are all happier and it seems to me that the holiday season brings out the best in us all!

So if the chill in the air puts a happy tune in your heart like me ~ let’s transform our world now with hope in the air and in our hearts!

Shine On!

xo