How To Embrace Change

Change is beautifully inevitable

Seasons change, people change, weather changes, day changes to night.  When we balk at change, it stunts our growth.  Many of us can flow with the changes of daylight savings time, etc with ease, but when it comes to deeper changes, more life changing changes, we stomp our feet and dig in our heels, crying ‘no fair!’ to the Universe.  But friends, it’s all for naught.  The changes that are coming, the changes that arrive, come whether we believe it’s fair or not.  It comes as no surprise that change happens in life, for otherwise we would remain stagnant and not have the opportunity to grow, to move out of our relegated zones of comfort and expand our experiences.

Change happens.

“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change,” is a quote from Dr. Wayne Dyer and happens to be on of my favorites.  It’s helped me through many of my life experiences when I wanted to refuse to budge from my own comfort zone even though my life had changed dramatically.  The idea that I can look at change from a different view and find the good in the change even when it was hard to see has been a pivotal point in my soul’s growth.  I can tell you that it hasn’t been easy to deal with many of the changes in my life, but then I don’t think that upheavals are supposed to be easy.  Sometimes they are simply mind shattering and belief scattering ~ which allows us to pick up the broken pieces of our lives and put them back together in a different way.  We change (for the better) when we allow change to flow and not dam the flow of life.  Certainly, I’ve learned that lesson time and time again as I know you have as well.

Change heralds freedom and allows us to drop the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s that may have had us imprisioned in our own lives.  Whether it be changes in health, relationships, jobs or roles, we need to find the peace in our own minds, hearts and souls to embrace the change and go with the flow.  That doesn’t mean you are in a canoe without a paddle, it simply means that you now know that you are the paddler of your own canoe.  Sure, you can link your canoe up with another’s, but you are still in charge of your own buoyancy.

For we can sink or swim when change happens.  We can stop trying and drown in the sorrow or we can tread water until we begin to swim again.  It’s a choice.  Lessons learned by change can feel daunting, but given time and trust, we can see the gifts that come from change.  There are blessings in change.  There’s opportunity to shine your heartlight when you’ve survived what you never thought you could.  There are connections with others to be made when you share your life experiences.

I know it’s not easy, but it can be done.  I am living proof.  Everyday in every way, you choose to swim or to give up.  Keep swimming dear friends.  You can do it.  If you need a helping hand, grab your paddle and let’s flow together.

Change is inevitably beautiful.

Shine On!

xo

GOAL!

HIKE!

You know how in football, before the goal, they say HIKE and the play begins?  Well, that’s where I am ~ I love this card because in answering the Daily Prompt’s questions it fits perfectly.  So here are my answers.  Feel free to comment below and answer these questions as well!  I’d love to hear about you too!

When you started this blog, did you set any goals?

To be honest, I set out to just try to blog in the beginning.  I wanted to share what I’d learned from enduring breast cancer as I was a celebrating being a 10 year survivor!  To me, it was an awakening that I was still here even after all I’d endured.  I wanted to write a book, but I felt like what I was writing was riddled with jumps in storytelling.  It didn’t flow properly.

The idea of a blog, a little daily tidbit, appealed to me.  So I simply set out to write often about whatever was pertinent to me that day in hopes that someone out there in this big world would find some type of comfort and connection to it/me.  I wanted to find and forge a community of people who would connect and enjoy life.

Lift each other up, empathize when needed and inspire each other ~

connecting with our strengths and developing our weaknesses.

Have they changed at all?

Certainly they’ve changed.  But the core is still there.  I believe that we are all connected and I love the safe sense of community which bloggers enjoy.  As I wrote above, the blog has developed as time has gone on.  Now with Inner Hotshot University, I’m playing with connecting our strengths and developing our weaknesses by simply taking the commitment to do one thing every week to stretch out of our comfort zones.  I’m not a professional.  I just want to inspire you to continue to learn, to create the life you love living, to appreciate your life and to be grateful.

I started out as Misifusa’s Blog until the name The Presents of Presence came to me and then I changed it.  Eventually I may be expanding…♥♥♥

I am inspired by you all ~ I learn from you ~ and I am so very grateful for your presence in my life!

Share your story!

Shine On!

xo

Daily Prompt: Goals

When you started your blog, did you set any goals? Have you achieved them? Have they changed at all?

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/daily-prompt-goals/

Pink Post ~ Can Worry Change the Outcome?

Worrying will never change the outcome

If you’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer or an illness or have ever waited for an answer that was important to you, then you’ve probably experienced worry in your life.  Be it waiting for test results due to your health or in school or at work ~ be it a job application, your driver’s test, a pregnancy test, a pathology result or anything else, many times worry is our comfortable go-to emotion.

Not that I’m saying that to worry is comfortable.  No way Jose!  Worrying is uncomfortable, but for many of us, it’s the routine emotion that we turn to when we are waiting for the results of something important to us.

Perhaps you are one who worries and thinks about all the possibilities for the outcome of the test.  You can imagine the good, the bad and the ugly result.  You can even go so far as to give yourself the worst result and then plan on how you will deal with that answer, plan how your life will change and how you will live with that change in your life.

Or do you worry, then imagine how relieved you will feel when the result is what you were praying for so that you are healthy?

Or are you the one who just can’t get past the what if’s and can’t even go to to the next step of imagining how life would go on if the result were bad?  Your mind continues to run round and round, thoughts whirring and repeating in your head until you can’t even think straight?

Or do you acknowledge that you are worried about the outcome, but then hands the control over to God/Universe/Life and goes on about the day knowing that no amount of worry gives us any more control over the situation than non-worrying?   Practicing telling the family the dreaded results or the happy ones still doesn’t change the situation at all for the moment.  Without knowing the result, this is all just busy mind conjecture and doesn’t do anything, but drive us into a frenzy at warp speed.

Do you relate with any of the above situations?  Are you a worrier?  Do you know someone who is?

Well, join the club my friends for I’m a worrier too.

I grew up surrounded by worriers.  ‘What if’s’ ruled the roost, cocka-doodle-dooing from morning to dusk growing up.  In fact, it became so ingrained in me that my first instinct if I’m not careful in my thinking goes right back to the ‘what if’s’ and to the worst outcome and how I will live with that result in my life.

I remember my father used to tell me that I needed to check my breasts to make sure that I didn’t get breast cancer.  His own mother had died from it when he was studying for his last exam during his senior year in college.  I don’t remember if he annoyed my sister with those same worries, but I clearly remember feeling pestered by him.  It almost felt constant although it surely wasn’t.  However, it was his constant worry that made me flippantly tell him that if I did get breast cancer, I would simply get my breasts taken off and get new ones.  I’d be the perkiest 80 year old on the beach due to non-saggy implants if that happened.  And off I’d go, on my merry way, feeling smug in having told him and gotten him off of my back, stunned into silence by my bravado.  And more than 14 years later ~ his worry came true and so did my flip answer to him.

…

Now I’m not blaming his perseveration of worrying about me getting breast cancer is what gave it to me, but I am saying that we need to watch our words and what we choose to put our attention to in this life.  My smug retort came true ~ I did end up with breast cancer and with a double mastectomy.   In fact, I have endured 3 separate reconstructions of those perky boobies.  So I ask you, what are the odds that his worry, my response and what happened are all related?

But back to worry ~ it’s easy for me to tell you not to worry ~ and believe me, I’ve counseled many people (not to mention myself!) to not worry about what may happen ~ I’ve even gone so far as to tell them that worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair and expecting to get somewhere ~ you can rock and rock all day long, but you’ll still stay in the same place.

I’ve offered to help people pack up their worries and give them to God/Universe or even to hand them over to me for awhile, knowing that I’d keep the bundle safe for them and that they could have it back whenever they chose (of course, I was going to drop that bundle into God/Universe’s lap as soon as I got my hands on it!)  No way was I burdening myself with their worries!

It’s amazing how people react when I tell them that I’ll take their worries.  They don’t want to give them up ~ they think because they have their pile of worries, they are in control of the situation.  It makes us somehow feel more in control when we hold our own worries, we’re greedy misers who don’t want to Let Go and Let God.  We believe that we hold the key with our worries.  Sometimes, we don’t even realize how stressed and how tightly we are holding on to the ‘what if’s’ and the anxiety which uncertainty brings to our lives.  We just know that if we can be left alone to worry, to agonize and to perseverate on the matter, we can somehow make it come out as we want.  We believe that we have control.

Well, my darlings, guess what I’ve learned?  We don’t have control over everything.

There, I’ve said it.  Whew ~ do you believe me?  Do you think you have special control powers?  Do you believe that you are different?  Because I did too for a long time.  Now I’ve just learned that I need to go with the flow, do my best, be as healthy as I can and just keep on living, loving and breathing.

Sorry for the long post and I apologize to whomever I copied the above image from on Pinterest.  It was so perfect that I just had to use it.

Thanks for reading today ~ I would love to hear how you feel about worry.

If you are a worrier, how are you dealing with worry in your life?

Shine On!

xo

Happiness is…

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp,

but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. -Nathaniel Hawthorne

Do you chase happiness?  Be honest, do you?  Or do you just do what you want in order to make your own happiness?  I loved this quote because quite honestly, I think the happiest people are those who do what they want, when they want, for the sheer happiness that it gives them.

It’s like work ~ when you love what you do ~ it’s easier to do because the time passes by so quickly because you are involved and enjoying the moment.  Can you say that about your job?  What about your life?  It’s your choice you know.  This is your life ~ your moment ~ your now ~ nobody else’s.

So let’s try today to just be in the moment.

Let happiness surround you.

Revel in the warmth of the sunshine or in the cool, healing raindrops.

Look up at the sky, check out the clouds, admire the stars and the moon.   

Take a deep breath.

You are here.

You are blessed.

You are loved.

Be grateful.

Shine On!

xo

Pink Post ~ Choose Hope

Once you choose hope, anything’s possible. ~ Christopher Reeve

You make hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday!  You choose your meals, your clothing, the time you wake up and the time you go to bed at night.  You decide how you are going to spend your time, move your body and what you are going to say ~ or not say.

You hold the power to choose ~ and they are your choices to make!

For me, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer,  I was devastated as I’m sure most people are when they are faced with a traumatic event.  It matters not what the trauma is whether it be illness, death, tragedy ~ the devastation is there as it is a change which challenges every fiber of our being.

But what you do with the trauma, how you deal with it, is your choice and nobody else’s.

For some, the above hurts because we want someone else to take the reins while we wallow in the negativity ~ the sadness, the self-pity, the victim mentality.  We want to blame someone else for the situation whether it is another’s fault or not.  We want to escape from the new reality and run away from the news.  We’d rather hide and just be left alone.  We want life as it was before we heard the news.  We don’t want to accept this new chapter nor the change in our lives.  We long for the moments before we heard or read or knew or experienced  the trauma.  We want to buck the system, retreat and change it.  We don’t want to accept the news.  We fight the change.  We simmer in our sadness.  We don’t want to go with the flow, we want to be left alone.

But, after our initial response, we have to make a decision that will change the way things work for us.  And it is our choice to make.

For me, choosing hope was easier as I’m a glass 1/2 full type of gal as I’ve mentioned before ~ but not everyone feels that way and I understand.  For those who see that glass as 1/2 empty, my heart goes out to you as this is a burden.  It’s a habit, it’s a comfortable way you’ve been living that needs to change for anything is possible.  I realize that when it’s the trauma of a death of a loved one, there is no hope for change ~ at least not that we can bring back our loved one.  I know, I’ve been there before.

But having said that, I’ve learned that once we can turn to acceptance of the new normal, of the heart-wrenching loss, we can begin to move on and find hope.  For me, my Dad’s death impacted my life in a very traumatic way ~ but now 9 months later, I am learning to go with the flow ~ to accept this new normal with all of its additional responsibilities.  I’m learning to forgive, to let go and to allow the healing that time spreads like a balm on the soul.

I love this quote from Christopher Reeve and I imagine in my heart and mind the gut wrenching challenges he endured as he tried to heal his broken body.  He shone like a lighthouse ~ he continued to hope for a cure, for a change, for a medical breakthrough, not just for himself but for all who were paralyzed.  He held onto that hope of possibility with Superman strength and continued to light the way for others ~ using himself as an example.

I know that for me, I asked the question, “Why me?” to the Heavens.  Why me?  Why not me?  I still don’t know the answer to that question, but I believe my life experiences have given me a gift ~ to choose hope, to be a friend to others, to understand and to empathize because of my experiences.  It hasn’t been easy and it’s been a long time coming this peace within that I’ve been creating.  In my heart, I wish I’d never had cancer or endured so much sadness in my life, but I hold the hope that if my story, my experiences, my life can help another person, well, then it’s not been a life in vain for it has helped others.

It’s a process, this healing, no matter what tragedy you are dealing with, but I know for sure that when you hold hope in your heart, the possibilities are endless.  That’s what I wish for you today and everyday ~

I wish you HOPE!

Choose Hope…Anything is possible.

Shine On!

xo

Out of Step With the Crowd

Yes, you march to the beat of a different drum…

And I’m right behind you!

Have you ever felt out of step with the crowd?  Recently I was chatting with a friend about cliques and how even some of the 40+ somethings we know can be cliquey.  Now I’m not a cliquey person and truth be told, I never really was.  My childhood didn’t allow for a lot of free time to spend with friends so I never had the opportunity to be a true part of the pack.  Not that I’m complaining as I think I’m a happier person because of it.  But back then, I did want to be a part of the group.

Now, I’m still not a part of the ‘in’ group which doesn’t bother me in the least.  I am friendly with everyone and therefore I can float as I wish, not worrying about the cliquey part of being in a certain group.  The competitiveness which breeds in this area doesn’t concern me because I don’t follow the pack rules.  Let’s just say, I’m my own pup!

It makes me happy to be this way ~ and I find it refreshing to find others who feel the same way.  Because many of our experiences mold us to be the people we are today, it’s important to embrace our differences and enjoy who we are!  By reveling in our true selves, we allow connections to others because we are comfortable in reaching out.  Does that make sense?

Having an illness or surviving abuse or enduring trauma changes us ~ it’s up to you how you allow it to change your life.  For me, although it sounds strange, my cancer diagnosis changed my life for the better.  It’s allowed me and my family to realize truly how precious life is and how vital enjoying the NOW is since we’ve learned that our only guarantee is this moment in time.  I didn’t realize the magnificence of life before ~ and now I won’t let that moment go!

What about you?  Are you reveling in the Uniqueness that is you?  Do you follow the pack or are you your own pup?  Have you endured sadness only to be able to help another along the way?  I think that adversity brings out the best in us ~ it allows us to dig deeper into our spiritual selves in order to deepen our connection to others.

Which brings me to today’s prompt which I read after I wrote this post ~ and to answer it ~ I began blogging, my FB page The Presents of Presence, my twitter account and pinterest because I enjoy learning new things ~ I enjoy sharing the quotes, the optimism and the inspiration that I find in the everyday ~ so I am not sure I ‘get’ social media, but I didn’t join because my family and friends did it.

Be a Beacon of Hope today to others!

Today I celebrate the UNIQUENESS that is YOU!

Shine On!

Don’t forget to say Rabbit Rabbit!

xo

Daily Prompt: The Social Network

Do you feel like you “get” social media, or do you just use it because that’s where all your friends and family are?

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/04/01/daily-prompt-social/