“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!

Wanna help others? Know yourself first!

What the heck does that mean? We have been taught time and again to take care of others before we take care of ourselves. The metaphor I mentioned on a previous blog was about putting on your mask on in an airplane before you help the passenger next to you, be it another adult or your child. Well, here we are again.

Co-dependency is a form of helping others before helping ourselves. We live our lives to help people to the detriment of our physical bodies and souls. We run out of energy and we are tired. Why? Because the more attention we give to others, especially for things they are capable of doing, the less attention we give to ourselves. It becomes a vicious cycle and can be very difficult to get out of. And there are a lot of people out there that WE want to help, but they really don’t want our help, so they run away from it and we are left feeling resentful.

For years, until most recently, I wanted to help others. I was a massage therapist, I do Reiki, I do a form of life and health coaching, I am a helper. But what I forgot to do along the way was help myself. This all falls back into my focus continually being external of me which had essentially gotten me “nowhere”.

Now focusing on ourselves, by no means, says that we are selfish, but that is what we are taught, so that is why I think it is so difficult to get out of that cycle. But everything that we have trouble with in life takes faith and willingness to change and this is no different.

Begin NOW, TODAY, to pay attention to and learn about yourself. If you are one of those people who can’t say no, or you have this endless need to help others, or if you want to start a business in massage therapy or any other of the helping services, then you will need to take a cold, hard look at yourself first.

Those people who are good at what they do in life take care of themselves first. They understand who they are, what they want in life, and every year they take some sort a self-understanding test to find out what they can do to improve themselves. This is what happens prior to New Years Resolutions and this is why most of us make resolutions but fail to keep them; because we don’t know ourselves, what it is we really want in life or what we need to do to take care of ourselves.

The people who consistently work on themselves and their self-growth and self-love are the people who others flock to and they are not standing out in the middle of the street looking for people to help. No, these are the people that help themselves first and BECOME who they want to teach others to be and the rest of the world goes crazy just wanting to be near them or a part of them. We see this every day with people like Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, Marianne Williamson, Oprah, Mastin Kipp, etc. But I have read their stories and they started in the EXACT SAME PLACE that we are now only they have done that one thing differently, each in their own way.

They figured out what they needed to do to get out of the place they were in and THEY DID IT. They did it by helping themselves first in whatever way that they needed to and here they are. THEY DID IT by having the faith and willingness to do it. THEY DID IT the same way we all can do it.

So take a long look at yourself … again, and if you REALLY want and know that there is something you want to do differently and you want to stop folding to others in your life that can just as easily do the things they are asking of you and using guilt as a weapon. Or those of you who have the need to help others, take a look at yourself and see what YOU NEED to help yourself first because once you have been through some sort of wringer in life, you have all that it takes to help people, but you can’t do it until you understand yourself first. Finally, those of you who wish to start a business in service, you don’t have to wait to do it, but you must be willing to change the things about yourself that you aren’t happy with along with the things in your life. Once you start doing this, you life, your face, your energy will change and people will being asking you what you did because they either don’t see the “old” you or they can feel the positive energy you now exude and want some of it; and therein lies the opportunity to help.

What is it about you that you want to change? Why do you want to help other people? Why do you want to start a business helping other people? Why are you helping others, but are not helping yourself? Is there something that is keeping you from looking inside yourself and focusing on others?

Think about these and see where you can go with them and KNOW YOURSELF FIRST so you are able to be there for others!

Search versus Surrender

Ok, ok it has finally hit me this morning as I woke up from slumber. What is the difference between Search and Surrender? What can lead me out of searching into surrender? The answer is LOVE. Not just any love but self-love. But with most of us, especially me, there was a road block to surrender and it isn’t because we haven’t tried, but maybe we have tried too hard.

My name is Caroline Rena. My middle name, as one of its meanings, is JOY. I had a Native American friend years ago name me Hummingbird, the meaning of which is JOY. I long for JOY in my life and have been searching for years. Why have I been searching to hard? My discovery is that it has been with me all along. It is me.

Wow that sounds vain, well no, it’s not. Let me go back to Self-Love.

I figured out that I cannot, nor will I ever find Joy outside of myself, I will, in fact, find NOTHING outside myself. Did you get that? We search and search and think we find lasting love, joy, peace, grace and especially God outside of us. It becomes obsessive and elusive. Where is it? Why won’t it stay with me? Where does it keep going? Why when I do or get this or that does it always go away? The Coach purse will not do it for me, at least not forever.

Why? Because what we haven’t yet learned Surrender. We try and try and it feels like we are running on a treadmill with a carrot in front of us just out of reach. Enough of that!

So here’s the hard part. The only way for us to find what we want is to look inside; it’s already there. The limitation for most of us is that from the pain and hurt in our lives we carry a certain darkness, we don’t like ourselves, we beat ourselves up, there is so much negative self-talk, we feel like we are nothing at times. Not true.

The idea here is to find the self-love which turns on the light inside and you will find everything you are in search of. I know from experience this is a very difficult thing to perceive but I also know from experience it is possible. Ask my friends and family, if I can figure this out, so can you.

Once you have turned on that proverbial light inside of you, you will find everything that you have been searching for. Are you tired of everything in your life being out of reach? Are you tired of feeling sad and helpless? Do you feel sometimes like it is everyone else’s job to make you happy? Well, no, they have their own stuff to work through, they can’t. We are all human, we are not invincible, there is no such thing as perfection, but in God’s world or your Higher Power’s thoughts, you are already perfection, you just need to find it inside yourself; the journey of life.

The road block here is two-fold: desire and willingness. You MUST figure out what it is that you want in life. You MUST realize that it is attainable. Once you realize this you MUST self-talk the desire of that wish or goal consistently and in order to ever achieve it, you must be willing to DO WHAT IT TAKES to get there. Those are only the first steps toward lighting the inside of yourself.

I gave you some starting points, now you must ask yourself the tough questions. What do you want? What can I say to myself to attain it? How do I find the willingness to move forward? What does it take to get there? Stop searching outside yourself for someone else’s love, joy, peace, grace, God. Find that starting point, do some self-research and go! Surrender! Let go! Once you do this, God/Higher Power will take care of the rest! You can do this!

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“Just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” Dory from Nemo

Sometimes I fall, but I know I must get up. Sometimes I miss a day of writing for my blog, but I know that is OK and I just keep going the next day.

I just wanted you to know just how much I love the movie Nemo and there are so many cartoon movies that actually talk to adults and teach us lessons. This particular lesson I have known about and done all my life but couldn’t really put it together in my head until most recently.

“Just keep swimming.” Now why in the world would this be a lesson? Well, in the literal sense, from the movie, if Nemo didn’t keep swimming he would drown. But funny thing here, you can take this in a non literal sense which means … NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS IN LIFE, KEEP GOING! The grass IS greener on the other side, but it’s your grass you are after, not someone else’s.

If you want to live life for yourself, giving up is not an option. Learning from mistakes, failures or something that just didn’t work out IS the option! We all have a tendency to get very upset when something doesn’t work out in our lives and the first inclination we have is to get upset and then just give up entirely on whatever it is. Sometimes, whatever didn’t work out or what we fail to accomplish wasn’t meant to be accomplished and there is something bigger and more in tune with our life and our dreams out there. I, on many occasions, gave up right on the spot after getting a blow after not hearing the answer I wanted to hear.

Let that go! Let it all go. Look at the dreams you have and start small. Sometimes writing a huge plan on a huge conglomerate of an idea, makes it too big and gives the opportunity to fail. If you start small and take baby steps and alter as you go to fit into the eventual bigger picture you will make it. Yet another book I have been reading as a suggestion from my son is called “Anything You Want” by Derek Sivers, the founder of CD Baby. Gives a whole new perspective on making your dreams come true, even dreams you never thought you had, in a little bitsy book that is only 77 pages long. Very easy read; but oh what a life changer and I’m not even done with it yet!

I have said this before and this is a great place to repeat it. Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before inventing the light bulb and here we are. I wouldn’t be typing this on a computer if Tom had given up, I wouldn’t be able to read at night if Tom had given up, we would all be in darkness after the sun goes down, if Tom had given up, or at the very least living by the light of a candle. What’s that say to you? I think it’s a pretty big statement.

Find something you want to do, take it from a hobby or maybe even a dream from when you were a child or just younger if you are an adult. The first step is to DECIDE that you want to pursue this. Next, you have to be WILLING to face the failures, the bumps and bruises and keep moving forward. As you go, as Mr. Sivers says, make your customers the most important aspect of your product and you will do no wrong. At the beginning of your venture start with one person and get feedback and just keep adding more people in and keep getting feedback and grow your dream, grow your business, grow your life. STOP WORRYING ABOUT FAILURE AND MISTAKES! They only hold you back.

If you want something to happen in your life, try what I am suggesting. You can’t just think about it and talk about it, you have to DO SOMETHING! If something goes wrong, don’t turn away from it, JUST KEEP SWIMMING and what you want to see happen will eventually happen! I finally get it!

“This Is Your Life”: Writing My Story

Then change it …

“I realized today is the day I write my own story.”

Wow, a lot of changes and lessons going on and apparently I CAN handle all that is happening because I have been waking up every morning with a new understanding of my self and how to move forward in my life.

I have been explaining the self-created struggles I have been going through in my life. For the past week, I have been listening to and reading Peace and Plenty by Sarah Ban Breathnach. Her writings absolutely touched my soul and changed my life! I am a writer, now it is my turn to write my story!

Now it isn’t so much in writing my story that I am talking about writing a book specifically, but I know that is part of it. I have been dreaming of writing a book for years and in fact working on it, NICE AND SLOW, for about the past 7 years. I am no where near what I was writing about when I started, but I am pretty close to being finished. But that is not relevant for this story.

This story is about me and my Life Book, it is about where I will go from here. It is about learning that my relationships teach me something everyday no matter what relationship it is; my son, my daughter, my boyfriend, my stepmother, my mother, my friends, my enemies. It doesn’t matter who it is. I have witnessed my son grow in his life from learning what not to do and that is huge for me. I have said that when I was younger, I made myself a victim because I had no idea how to recognize what not to do and do the opposite. My son teaches me every day how to do it and I am so grateful for his presence in my life and showing me that it’s okay to do that, although I may piss off the people who are generally pissed off at me anyway, so why the hell not?

I feel that is what we are here to do with our lives; to write our own story, and part of that story involves having and learning from relationships of all kinds, being of service, loving ourselves enough to live our lives as we so choose.

I’m listening to songs right now to add to this blog and it’s almost like I have to go back to my teens in my mind and start all over again. It’s fun, so age is just a perception. Release, release, release: all the sorrows, the crap, the arguments, the trauma, the pain, everything that is not serving me anymore. Probably not that it has been serving me all along, but I just want my life back.

Hard for me to say, easy for me to say: stop worrying about all the crap, all the minutia in your life that just drags you down. Pick a dream that you have, think about it every day, until it becomes a mantra and then it will eventually become a reality. If you are “old” like me, like my son picks on me about, then go hang out with younger people that have their shit together and see what makes them tick. It’s never too late to do that. If you are young and you have had or are having a lot of crap going on in your life and nothing feels like it is working for you and you don’t know what direction to go but you feel like you need to, find an adult or someone who is older and/or wiser than you who has their shit together and use them as your mentor. People who have it all together don’t mind if you do that, in fact they will welcome it and will teach you and show you things you have never experienced.

What I am trying to say here is that all is not lost no matter what age you are. If you can step back from all the crap going on outside of you and take some time to go inside and find out who you are and what you want out of life, there is nothing out there to stop you. Don’t believe the naysayers, they are generally the people who are stuck in their lives and because they are stuck they think you should be too.

I doesn’t matter who you are, where you live or what is going on with you, really. What matters is that you make the decision to change your life and be WILLING to do it and you will make it. You will make it out of your own personal hell, you will make it out of your neighborhood, you will make it out of whatever it is that is holding you down, but you HAVE to take those first steps of making the decision, be willing to do it and then do it. Get out of your own way and stop holding yourself back; no one is holding you. It may feel like they are right now, but take it from me after over 20 years of trying to figure things out, I am my own worst enemy. Once you discover this, things come to you so much easier than they ever have. If that is what you want, then you have to make it happen, no one else can do if for you.

I am just at the beginning of this process myself, at 49, and what I have found is that even with the smallest of decisions I make to move forward, things I want to change about my life do. Every time I JUST make the decision, something for me shifts and that is exactly what I am looking for. Rome wasn’t built in a day, sweetheart, neither will I be and neither will you, but I know you are brave, as brave as I have found myself to be and you can do it just as easily as I can. It does work, just take a deep breath when you are ready and go for it! Jump the hell out of your nest and fly! This Is Your Life, start today, begin to live it and write your own story!