MATURITY

"Maturity includes the recognition that no one is going to see anything in us that we don't see in ourselves. Stop waiting for a producer. Produce yourself."

Marianne Williamson

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FOCUS

"If you'd rather live surrounded by pristine objects than by the traces of happy memories, stay focused on tangible things. Otherwise, stop fixating on stuff you can touch and start caring about stuff that touches you."

Martha Beck

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YELLOW CROCUSES

Never underestimate the power of starting a new day with all the potential in the world.  Even if you’ve felt buried under a foot of snow, the possibility of cracking the surface is and always will be, right there within you. 

IMMOVABLE

We see what we want to see.  The more we’re wrapped up in our pain and righteous indignation, the less we see what’s actually there.

It’s one of the most pernicious ways to be stuck.

CROTCHETY

My sister said that with age there was a certain impatience about me, actually more of a crotchety-ness, she said, kind of bitchy, if truth be told, she added.  She’s right of course.

Here’s the thing.  Being bitchy just because you can be is not right, it just makes you an a**hole.   But being impatient with someone who is cavalier with your time is absolutely justified.  We teach others how to treat us.  ERGO we teach others how to waste our time.  When you become conscious of time whipping by leaving you precious little of it for stuff you really want to do, being crotchety at some arrogant fool blah, blah, blahing, is just the beginning.

HALF-ASSED

Don’t show up if half-assed is all you got.  And if you do show up with half-assed, don’t be offended if you get called on it.  In fact, true compassion is not letting half-assed slide.  

If you’re looking to make friends, perhaps this philosophy is not for you.  But think about it.  Do you really want to be friends with someone who can’t get over their ego, or doesn’t have enough insight, or care enough about themselves to see a truth for what it is?  

Compassion, it says “I know you’re better than that, so step up.”

ENDINGS

As we grow in wisdom and awareness we must let the old parts of us die and mourn them with respectful times of grief.  And just like some deaths that are unbearably prolonged and painful so some of our deaths will be.  All this is right and necessary because if all the ‘who we were’s’ did not die there would be no room for the magnificent ‘who we will become’s.’

ADDICTION

What is now addiction was once a coping mechanism for pain and circumstances that were unbearable.  So too, I believe, is depression.  It is an addiction to the tried and true stories that plunge us further into our ditch of darkness the depth of which has become solace and respite.  We seek that place like an addict seeks their drug, determined, dogged, desperate.

ASK

When we ask for what we need and send that request on ahead, it’ll be waiting for us when we get there.  We, especially women, have to remember to ask for what we need, we need to speak up.  

Why is it that we expect others to read our minds?

MOVE

Along with that wish take some action toward fulfilling it.

"Consciousness is only possible through change; change is only possible through movement." —Aldous Huxley

SOLITUDE

When did solitude become a bad thing?  Isolated, secluded, a lonely individual with no friends hiding behind closed doors.  It’s a modern invention.  Solitude is and has always been a necessary state in order to get anything worthwhile done. Even AND most especially getting in touch with our authentic and essential self.

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude ~ Aldous Huxley

UP

The road straight ahead is circuitous, it will lead you back to where you are right now.  It might look different, kind of the grass looking greener on the other side kind of different, but it’ll become familiar in no time.

If we really want to make a change, if we really want to live authentically, on purpose, in synch with our spirit, we need to look up.  Looking up is the riskiest, the scariest way to go.  But truly, it’s the only regret minimization strategy there is.

MYOPIA

Unless we change the inside first, until we decide to make choices and use tools that help take us in a different direction, we will invariably return back to where we were. So it’s a very short-sighted strategy to manipulate the external. 

The reality is that no matter how many times we go on that diet, move houses or buy that shiny expensive car, if we haven’t changed how or what we think about ourselves, any satisfaction experienced from external changes will fade very quickly.  

TRUST

TRUST that the energy you put out there will come back to you.

Mind the energy you put out there.

Mind the energy you put out there.

Mind the energy you put out there.

DUES

I’ve always hated the phrase “Paying your dues.”  It’s usually uttered by people who feel threatened by a newcomer who might one day do what they do, better.  It’s a phrase mired in lack, scarcity and insecurity.  

Little wonder that as a society we have truly forgotten how to mentor people, not just youth, but apprentice anyone who is curious, interested or fascinated by something.  How poor is a society that must guard knowledge and enthusiasm?  

It’s interesting that when we share what we know we’re not just sharing knowledge, we’re sharing our passion and compassion, our sense of purpose and abundance.  Most importantly though, we're sharing our sense of connection.

HOSTAGE

They say we should never forget where we came from.  While that’s true in gauging the distance we’ve come with humility, there are those who are heavily invested in making sure we don’t stray very far from that place, from that history, from gaining enough distance between where we were and where we think we’d like to go.  

“Those” people are holding us hostage in a time and place that we’d like to move away from.  The kicker is that they know all the triggers, all the buttons to push, all the “who do you think you are’s” to throw in our face, to keep us glued.

Some of the worst offenders are those closest to us who don’t want to change the status quo.  

The single worst offender by far however, is the one that resides within us.

BIG L

Are you on a hero’s journey?  

If it feels as though we’re going through some hard internal times, worse than we’ve every known before, changes are coming fast and furious, dissatisfaction in all aspects of our lives is constant and high, if relationships we’ve had for years and years have become a nuisance, it might be that we’re on our hero’s journey.

It’s a journey that’s meant to create chaos in a spectacular way, more painful and profound than we’ve ever known.  It’s meant to change us.

That’s the thing, how will we react?  How will we travel through?  Will we travel through?  Or will we run away?  Will we self-medicate?  Will we pretend it’s not happening?

Answers to these questions will determine whether we will be the heroes of our own lives or whether we will chicken out.  Prefer to live in bitterness and regret.

LILLY

When we have a hard time getting in touch with our spirit it helps to turn to what embodies spirit.  Like the Lilly of the Valley I saw today in the front yard of this tidy little house.  The tiny flowers huddled in groups oblivious of their stunning beauty or the effect they had on winter-weary eyes.  They just drooped their tiny white heads together like school-girls whispering.  Not wanting, not needing, not judging.  Just BEING, perfect, sublime.

NOT BROKEN

We get needing help sorting things out from time to time confused with ‘fixing’ us.

LIAR

The voice in our head is a liar.  Think about it.  How is it that all it has to say is negative -- all the time.  Nothing is negative all the time.  It just isn’t.

The problem is that if we’re invested in fear and anxiety the voice in our head functions as validation of that fear and anxiety.  The more it validates this fear and anxiety the more we stay stuck in it. It’s a trap and we’re lured into it by the lies the voice in our head tells us.

COMPASSION

Compassion isn’t for the people that we love and care for - they get compassion as a default of that love and caring.  True compassion is for those that we really, really struggle to even like.

WIN

It’s a bit of a revelation for me that we actually need to earn the right to win.  Not the right as in ‘who do you think you are’ kind of right, but putting in the time, the effort, the sweat.  Not because we’re paying dues that’s not the point of earning the right either.  The point of earning our right to win has to do more with putting in the effort to hone our skills to the best they can be.  To fully grow into what we will become, what we will achieve, is something we need to earn.

EDUCATION

An absolute necessity for a woman.

WOMEN

HOLD UP HALF THE SKY.

And are being crippled by 90% of the burden.

MALLEABLE

You can make up a list of demands when looking for a significant other, or a wish list in a potential mate but those things are all external to you.  For example, needs to be X tall, needs to make X a year, needs to drive X, must like ferris wheels, long walks on the beach, not live with his mother, etc.

The missing piece is YOU and what’s driving the needs on those lists and ultimately the decisions you make.  If your decisions are driven by fear, or a need for safety or a desire to be loved and taken care of, then your list becomes flexible, it becomes malleable to fit your dysfunctional need.  Coming from an external place will never provide you with the things you’re looking for.

Only by going inward and listening to what your heart is telling you and being steadfast and unbending in its pursuit, will what you find be EXACTLY what you need. 

FRIENDS

Lying to your friends, or if that’s too strong a word for it, not coming completely clean to a dear friend who clearly has your best interest at heart, is a tell-tale sign that you are operating from denial, that your behaviour is coming from a crazy dysfunctional place, that chances are YOU ARE MAKING A BIG MISTAKE.

For example, if you're dating someone that your friends don't like, you might want to listen to what they're telling you.  You're probably missing something.  And chances are, you're not being completely frank with them about this person.

RAIN/REIGN

If chaos rains around you it’s because chaos reigns inside you.  ~ Martha Beck

SIMPLE. EASY. PROFOUND.

LESS THAN

Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes? Why do we go down the same destructive path that doesn’t serve us, repeatedly?  Because we’re relying on what it LOOKS like.  

Here’s the thing: It’s not about what it looks like, but how it makes us FEEL.  The mind numbing job and the significant other that ignores us or abuses us, LOOK very different, but, that they make us feel LESS THAN and DISRESPECTED,  IS EXACTLY THE SAME.

FAIL

Why is it so hard for us to live as though we can’t fail?

Isn’t failing a judgement?  Both of ourselves and others?  So what if judgement didn’t exist?  Better still, what if we weren’t so hard on ourselves and didn’t care what other’s thought?

Would we be able to live with failure as part of the learning process?  Which, it turns out, is exactly what it is.  

FAILURE IS PART OF THE LEARNING PROCESS -- get over it.  Literally.

MIND

Our mind can make us believe that we are what it says we are.  Depending on the day, we are either brilliant or a piece of crap.  It is rarely the former, usually the latter.

If we are to truly live an authentic life we cannot live it from a mind-centered place because our mind does not represent our authentic self.  Our authentic self is not reactionary, fear driven and perpetually negative -- that is our mind.

Our true authentic self is love, compassion and goodness. If  each day, rather than forcing ourselves to think about love, compassion and goodness, we would FEEL for these things inside us, we’d be living at our highest potential.

PRACTICE POSSIBILITY

We spend a great deal of time on the opposite of possibility, on the many different ways things are absolutely not going to work out.  I find though that if we practice being wide open to possibility we will achieve a self fulfilling thing - we will achieve everything and all that is possible.