On Acceptance, Surrender and Following Dreams

 

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Victor Frankl

I woke up this morning feeling quite blah and couldn’t quite put my finger on why.  Yesterday we had a snow storm here that really only lasted a few hours but was enough to mess up traffic, so I decided to stay home.  I had the whole day to work on my book to get it ready for publishing.  This is a dream I have held for the past 7 or so years.  Well, at least that’s how long I have been working on the book!

The issue has been that this book is a memoir and I was still and in a way am still living through the things I need to know in order to write it!  Very tricky; but regardless, back to the funk I was feeling when I woke up.  I did my usual morning meditations and prayers and just asked the questions, I don’t really know how I feel, is this sadness?  Is something ending? Why don’t I feel satisfied? Why do I feel so weird?  Then I said Please, Creator, guide me and help me through this day!

That was it and I got the response I was looking for in continuing my daily readings and meditations.

I knew that I needed to stop messing around and just get my book done.  I had discussions yesterday with people in regards to that.  But what I also realized is that I have been fighting myself for some reason to not write.  It wasn’t until this morning that I realized it is what I have to do, so that got me started.  I have been, apparently, having a difficult time with acceptance and began having a conversation with my love.  I asked him straight out, “Do you feel as though I don’t accept you?”  and I got the answer I was looking for.  We ended up having a discussion for almost an hour and I felt so much better and knew exactly what I needed to do.

As I have said before, we are constantly looking for things outside ourselves and acceptance is no different.  Apparently, in order to be able to even think about accepting ourselves, we need to learn how to accept other people and situations for who or what they are.  It’s not like we can change any of it and I believe that this is a huge link to all of the other behaviors we do that I have mentioned before in other writings.

In accepting another human being for who they are, we have to let go of expectations, judgment, fear, all of it.  Generally, the people in our lives that have harmed us in any way are so lost and un-accepting or un-loving of themselves that somehow it makes it just a little easier to learn how to accept them.  Sure their behaviors may have blown our world apart, believe me, I get that, and this is a hard thing to do.  But we can’t change them or our circumstances, so what’s left?  Changing ourselves.

In order for us to be accepted by others, we must learn how to accept them and I believe the best way to do that is to surrender to it.  People are who they are and sometimes it’s because they just don’t know or understand any other way.  They, underneath everything, are probably decent people, but life may have stripped them away of something.  They are looking for love and acceptance, just like we are.  Learning to accept them guides us into to learning to accept ourselves; using surrender is a good first step.

Have I been seeking the acceptance that I have been withholding from someone else? Can I open my heart to someone I have shut out?  Am I pushing people away by not accepting them for who they are?  Doing this doesn’t mean that the other person was necessarily right; it just means that I am willing to heal.

Which brings me to my last thought; following dreams.  Waking up this morning with the thoughts I had and having the talk with my love brought me to this place of finally following my dream.  In August I will be 50, I want, more than anything for my book to be published and I have decided that the first draft for submission will be completed by my birthday.  I am saying this out loud and writing it because this will force me to follow through.  I believe it is time to follow my dream and my heart and so I will be offline, once again, but this time it won’t be to struggle.  This time it will be to publish!

I thank you for taking the time to read these blogs and giving me the opportunity to work through my feelings and lessons here.  I hope and dream that the next time you see me will be on the back cover of my book! God bless and don’t forget to follow your dreams!

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” James Joyce

People tell me every day, “When one door closes, another one opens.” Until I saw the above quote, it didn’t hit me that my mistakes were actually my doors.  So I had to sit down to think about this one.

I used to be a perfectionist and in some ways I still can be one, but perfectionism is NOT what life is about.  We strive and strive to meet an unrealistic standard that NO ONE has set for us and what I have learned is that life does not lie in perfectionism; it lies in the desire, the willingness and the mistakes in order to live life.

Most of us, when we make a mistake or what we presume to be a mistake, will beat ourselves up to no end.  We negative self-talk ourselves to death, “How could I be so stupid?”  “What did I do that for, I’m such an idiot!” The list of these can go on and on.

But where does this get us?  Nowhere but feeling bad, rejected, shamed and we are doing all of this to ourselves.  How do we get out of this continues circle of shame and feeling bad?  We finally admit to ourselves that making a mistake is not a bad thing.  Sure there are people out there who are going to say something completely different, but are these people actually happy or are they running their lives off of fear?  This would be the fear of making a mistake and there are SOOOO many people who do that.  “I could lose my job, if I make a mistake, and how would I pay the bills or send my kids to school?”  “My spouse will leave me if I make a mistake.”  Again, more and more of these statements. And there is a good chance that if our parents berated us for making mistakes, then we will berate ourselves, but beating ourselves up is not the answer.

But is the truth about all of this on the other person or situation or is it in our own heads?  Is fear stealing life from us instead of giving us the opportunity to see that the mistake is just a way of learning from something that we may not have even really known how to do to begin with?  When other people beat us down about a mistake that we made, is it really their own fear of something that is doing the beating?

Mistakes are meant to happen in life.  The ONLY way to live life is to make mistakes and learn from them and do it better next time.  NO ONE on this planet can expect us to be perfect at something, and if they do, they are being judgmental and can also lead to the shame and rejection we feel.  If it doesn’t feel good to us then we need to let it go.

Once again, I will mention Thomas Edison who made 10,000 mistakes before he finally invented the light bulb.  So what would happen if he had beat himself up and given up after the first couple of mistakes?  We would be in the dark and we are not.  Maybe we could learn a thing or two from him and others who have looked past their mistakes and continued to walk through the doors or portals of their lives.

Can you realize that you are human and that you will make mistakes?  Can you find a way to stop the negative self-talk, beating yourself up every time you make a mistake?  Don’t let others be your guidance system, if it feels bad then change up what you are doing and KEEP MOVING FORWARD; life is a journey, there is no end.  Life is a learning experience, take from the mistakes, learn from them and move forward on to bigger and brighter things for yourself. Dream, make mistakes, realign yourself, try again, move forward, discover yourself and step through the portal into life!

Reaching Out: A Tribute to My Grandmother Who Raised Me

It is my grandmother’s birthday today and although she passed away in 2007, I still have her lessons inside me and I give tribute to her today with this blog input.

I am interested in touching one person’s soul at least once a day, so when I decided to come back to blogging that was my initial goal. Of course, I would love to help everyone, but I know that isn’t possible.

As I started writing again, I also discovered the logistics of keeping up a blog website without a ton of knowledge on how and getting out to as many people as possible and still get people excited with feedback and people who want to contribute to this blog as well. Life isn’t just my story, it is our story. However, I am not sure what it is I am supposed to do right now.

I hope that what I am putting out is helping, but I also need to know what people need in their lives right now or even just their thoughts. I focus on me, because I am learning and growing exponentially, but I could use a little guidance from my “fan base!”

I have many gifts and I know that writing and motivating are two big ones for me, but how to incorporate that into my blog is beyond my comprehension right now. But since I mentioned gifts, I would like to talk about that for a few minutes.

Pablo Picasso once quoted: “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” There is also a quote about not letting your music die inside you.

Being able to give my gift away is huge for me. The process is hard. It has taken me years to fully recognize and accept what my gifts are. Now I am at a place to do something with it and fear, at least for the past 7 years has been what has held me back. Now I am ready but I don’t know how to move forward, logistically.

But how many of you out there who are have amazing gifts and the intelligence to move forward using your gifts for others, for the greater good, don’t do it; for whatever reason. Maybe it’s fear of failure, maybe it’s that once you give your gift, someone will take it and you will never have it. Have you ever thought about why? I can tell you this, you need to. The world is missing out because you are not paying attention to the positive power you have inside you and instead are so focused on what is wrong with the world that nothing, it seems, every changes; for you or for the world. Or, you are so concerned that you will lose all the money you can make by sharing your knowledge with others that you just don’t share it. But you won’t make any money anyway if you do that. Read Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill, he has very good information on what a leader is. The one that stood out for me was that a good leader is someone who is never afraid of someone getting better than them and them being the person to help others get there. Hmmmm.

It appears that the world is getting ever darker and especially for some of the Generation Y’ers there seems to be no way out, sometimes that’s what it sounds like. We baby boomers with what knowledge we had, not that we didn’t love our children, have done them a great injustice, not knowing why and certainly not intentionally. Society doesn’t work the same anymore, but it can and will change, regardless, but there are many intelligent and gifted Generation Y’ers I talk to all the time and they are stuck and confused and I feel like they are lost. Believe me, not all of them are that lost, some have become successful against the odds, and of course everyone has their own definition of success. The ones I have spoken with are excellent motivators for me and everyone around them, but when it comes to themselves, don’t have a clue what path to take or sadly even why bother. I know, we all do this, especially me, but this is the next generation, I am depending on this generation!

Does anyone see a problem with this? I certainly do and the only suggestion I can give to them is to find a mentor, someone who has “made it” not in the greedy way, but in the way that life needs to be made and search them out for every ounce of information that makes them tick. The younger generation had lost out in the opportunity to talk to their elders and learn from them. We took that away by putting our elders away and placing them on drugs so they are completely incoherent. With all our elders wisdom stuck inside their heads and no one to talk to about it because mostly the younger generation doesn’t care anymore, both these generations lose out on information that is badly needed. Elders and children have always been good for each other and both generations have lost that. Maybe we can find a way to get that back. Go in search of your grandparents and talk to them. They are full of amazing knowledge, they have lived through things and already learned things that will teach you AND they have an amazing way of allowing you to learn these lessons. If you have a great-grandparent that you can connect with even better.

Another generation Y’er told me a story of how she is studying to be a physical trainer. She pays for herself at her gym and while she is in school, is doing personal training for a friend for free at her gym. A couple of the other personal trainers, who apparently have been doing it for a while, obviously have nothing better to do but stand around and gossip about her, gave her a hard time for being there. Wrong!!!!  I couldn’t believe that story. If you are able to mentor people, use that gift, don’t throw in someone’s face because you are greedy and don’t want them to take your customers. I feel as though we have the capacity to make things better, we just don’t know how, have the time, or want to bother. But we have to bother.

Teach, my loves, share your gifts, find those mentors, do the world proud! I know you can, I know you have it in you, I have talked with you, maybe not you personally, but others just like you. Show me what it means to be powerful with guts, not money, find out what you need to do to change to world and just take that first step and go after that dream. I would love to be the “elder” someday that you come to, I am working through my stuff at my age, you can do it too. And, if you have any ideas on how I can move forward with my blog, I welcome the suggestions!

 

Women and Finances

I really, REALLY want to change my lot in life when in comes to money. I just wasn’t sure how, up until this point, I was going to do it. I have mentioned before, that I was really never taught correctly on how to handle or work with money and most women aren’t. If you were lucky enough to have a parent or someone that taught you well, God bless you, but apparently most women have no clue. We do know how to spend it though, but that is about the gist of it.

I have been listening to a Book CD called Peace and Plenty by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Apparently, as an author, I really like her because I figured out, although they are packed in a box in storage right now, that I have almost all of her books. What made me forget that one? Who knows? But that’s another question for another time.

Anyway, this book is literally changing my life, my mind, my attitude, my understandings, my heart … did I mention my life?

Money, technically, has always been a “man’s world” especially in the past. And from the past is where women learned how to deal with this character called money. Depending on what generation you are in, especially Baby Boomer women and prior, we were taught virtually nothing about money other than men were in control of it and our lives. We were taught the following, however, which blew me away yesterday when I heard it on the CD. I had to rewind … no wait … I’m talking about a CD here, so whoops. I had to go back to what I had just heard. Stop the train! Listen again! I bet you are really curious at this point as to what I heard, aren’t chah?

Ok, so what I heard was that my relationships and marriages and divorces are all based in my knowledge and understanding of money. It sounded really good, but what the hell? What does that mean? Well, bear with me, I am still working on uncovering the truth here, but what it means to me is that if I had learned how to work with money in my life as a woman, that I wouldn’t need to think that I needed to depend on a man to help me or that I couldn’t live my life on my own or follow my dreams.

Woah, but wait, I have a very strong independent streak, so what is this all about? I believe that because as children, girls are taught to take care of everyone but themselves and I guess that flows into the money arena. I also know that women are taught, especially from the fifties to take care of their man. You know the old song, “You bring home the bacon and I’ll fry it up in a pan, and never, never let you forget you are a man.” Hit the BREAKS!!!!! What!!!!!! Shit, no wonder we women are so damn confused. I know deep inside me is a powerful woman who knows how to handle her life that is screaming to break free and LIVE! But why haven’t I been doing it?

I have always hidden in the shadows of a man, doing for him so he can do well or at least hoping he would do well, so I could use his money to fund my dreams. Well folks, that has not worked for me yet! Now for some women, that is a choice and in many cases well done, you know like the Eleanor Roosevelts of the world. And there are women out there who want to be a homemaker and just shine behind their husbands and that is ok; but apparently not for me.

But here is something I would like to say about that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to have a life for yourself, women, nothing AND you can do this in any way you want, whether you wait to get married and have children or have children early and then go after your dreams. In this world of freedoms in this country (yes, this is a freedom here) you have the right to choose now how you want to do this. You can even never get married nor have children. It is not so shunned upon as it was in the past.

I know I have some more learning to do, but this is, for me, a really fun research project in learning about money and learning, at the same time what caused me to make some of the errors in judgment I have made in my life in dating and marrying men.

So what is my point, you ask? My point is that I am no longer in a reverie, I am BACK and now that I understand what all this means, I realize that it is not my job to tend to a man and his dreams. I can support him in his dreams as I would hope that he would support me in mine, especially being in a relationship, but beyond that … look out world, here I come!

My Son

 

Just a small moment in time spent with my son has brought me to many realizations about him and myself. He was here for a visit just for a day, but oh what a beautiful day! I am so grateful for the time even if it went quickly and now it is gone. I will cherish that day forever!

We went as a family for a hike in the mountains. I take pictures of him climbing on rocks, laughing, talking with my boyfriend. I walk behind with my friend because I can’t keep up with them, their legs are too long! Enjoying the peace of the woods, the trees, the rocks, the smell of fall; so comforting, so relaxing.

I feel as though time stood still even for just a few hours. I don’t know where they are up ahead, but I know where he is in my heart. I think about his adventures as a child, I think about the times he scared the crap out of me when he was little, times when he didn’t come home on time, the time we rushed to the emergency room because he got a cut on his forehead and was gushing blood. I think about his adventurous spirit.

I think back to the time he wrapped his entire hand around my finger and we just lay together on the couch. I think about who he is now, this genuine, kind, beautiful soul that I am so proud of. Just who he is first and foremost and then his accomplishments and who he is to others in his life.

I realize how grateful I am to have him back in my life and our relationship and how much stronger it gets every day. I am grateful that I can be here for him, if only over the phone, for those times that he needs to talk. I feel so happy that I have him back in my life.

I feel sad when he leaves again, but just long enough to know how much I love him and how much I really do miss him. I find it amazing how nothing else matters when he is present.

I feel happy about the fact the just his presence helps me to realize how much I have in my life no matter what else is going on. When he tells me his hopes and dreams, he helps me to dream again. I have come back to myself because of his guidance. His guidance in just being who he is, the baby in my mind’s eye, the man he has become.

This man does not let anything hold him back, he dreams big and he follows those dreams. He allows life to unfold and flow, the way it is meant to. He lives everything about life that I have been reading in books for years, self-help books, things I was never taught growing up and didn’t understand until within the past few years. Sure he falls every so often either physically or emotionally, but he gets right back up and he does not let that stop him!

He has taught me well. Thank you my son, I love you with all my heart!