Shine Your Own Light!

WE all have gifts to share or a light within that shines brightly when we are in our creative zones, don't be afraid to let others light their own flames from yours. When you are constantly putting out your creative energy it will eventually become depleted so we all need each other to keep that spark alive! My messages come to you in very high color, visually stimulating graphics and texts because that's what I love to see and create. Color has always fascinated me and when I learned how to create my own graphics, I knew black and white were NOT going to be  enough to satisfy my needs. It's one way of many that I choose to connect with the world around me and music is another, but that is a whole other website altogether that hopefully will connect to this one once I am able to sync everything together. The common factor is that we all should tap into whatever it is that makes us light up and make it a daily habit. When you have a zest for life that is often found in our creative outlets, it makes for a stress-free, happy person that is naturally lit from within. 

Balance

SoulMates

In Gratitude

How you spend your time...

is how you spend your life!

We ALL lead busy lives but I find it a blessing when my time is free enough to include a phone call to a dear friend or even better, a few hours of time together catching up. I try not to be too busy for times like these and I cherish those in my life who make room for me. These are life's simple pleasures that feed our soul! How are you spending your time and is it truly on things that make your life more meaningful?



The Choice is Always Yours

We are all influenced by our circumstances that surround us and it is by thousands of choices that we've made that have brought us to where we are today, so to say that we are responsible for where we are in our own lives, is to take that power and use it to motivate our actions right now to bring the changes into our lives that we've been waiting and wanting to see. Joy is easily found each and every day but you have to be willing and open to see it, instead of creating excuses for why it doesn't exist in your life. This is the difference between joyful, happy people and miserable ones, it all comes down to what you allow and that you continuously keep choosing to find JOY in YOUR Journey.



Endless Possibilities



Where do you stand?

I am becoming more and more clear on where I stand in the world and my beliefs are very much a combination of living and learning and trusting my instincts to always steer toward doing the right thing and doing no harm to any other. I am not one who believes that for the greater good that it's OK to harm another. Once I learn, I change and reflect and then I put those lessons to good use. To use Maya Angelou's quote, "Do the best you can until you know better, then when you know better, do better.” I believe that if you know better and continue to not do better, then that is a choice.

Friend or Foe

I thought it would be appropriate to introduce a good friend of mine that has been with me for at least the last five years or so. It's not like we didn't know each other before then, but we recently became really close. He's the kind of friend that is with you at all of the major events in your life. He's pretty much replaced everything and everyone in my life because I seem to listen to everything that he says and believe it, even if he isn't always rational. I've been questioning my friend lately and his motives. He sometimes whispers things in my ear to make me doubt myself, and brings a certain negativity that makes me feel like maybe I don't want to be such good friends with him anymore. I've begun to see through him and really look at what he brings to my life. I ask myself, does he lift me up and make me feel good about myself or is he always reminding me of the bad things that have happened and could happen again. Well you probably know my friend, he's pretty popular and he knows lots of people, his name is Fear. See I knew you would recognize him. Every time I say his name or bring him up people act like they already know who he is, like he's good friends with them too. Since he's been in my life for so long, he's become almost a comfort to me in some ways. I use him as an excuse sometimes for things when I don't feel like doing them or when I don't think I can do them. It becomes very convenient to use him in that way but now I'm starting to see that maybe this relationship is not one that I want to continue on with. I have started doing things lately that have moved me farther away from Fear, and I have to say I haven't felt this good in years. I am taking small steps to move out of my comfort zone, which Fear always told me never to leave. I am beginning to push the silent voice of Fear aside when he says not to try new things or go to new places because the things that happened in my past would somehow happen there too. I don't believe in him so much and with every passing day, we grow further apart. I am seeing clearly that he just never was a part of my destiny and it was always my choice to end this relationship. If Fear has been your friend as well and has done any of these things to you, just know that he isn't welcome anymore and that your happiness is more important than this unhealthy relationship. We end up becoming victims of Fear's distorted reality and can never really embrace him without losing a big part of our lives to his selfish, one-sided motives. Any relationship where you end up losing the ability to be who you really are and to freely do whatever you want to, is one that will never benefit you in the end.





Sweet Surrender

I was playing with some ideas of how to live a more freeing life, one that easily lets go of grudges and resentments and makes lots of room for fun and happy times. It is much easier said than done though and even when we know the consequences of toxic emotions, we cling to them day after day. We think that if we say it enough and remove ourselves from every situation that we feel might be damaging, that we are solving this problem. The truth is that if you don't make peace with any hurtful situation and release it, you'll see the residue staining every future relationship that you get into. There comes a time when the opinions of others can no longer influence your actions, you need to know for yourself how you feel and why you think the way you do. While some opinions are helpful for perspective, it can hurt you to take on someone else's thinking because they have come to their own conclusions about life based on their very different experiences and we need to be aware of that. No two people will ever see the same way on every subject and nor should they expect to. It all boils down to digging deep and really confronting things that bother us and deciding when the right time is to get rid of people and situations that will never help us but only hold us back from true happiness. Freedom comes when you can find peace with where you are in life and with whom you've chosen to surround yourself with.

Expectations- To Expect or Not to Expect?

Live Without Expectations

What are you expecting?

Choices

     It's easy to believe that we always have our best interest at heart because why would we be doing anything to self-sabotage the one person who is closest to us. I think that the only way to know for sure if you are doing your absolute best to improve your life is to look at the choices you make for yourself everyday. There is no better determining factor to use than to see your everyday routine and the way you handle life's stresses and by seeing the results that show up in your life continuously.  The choices we allow are what make up daily life for us. Are we happy with the results? Maybe we are happy with the life we have but certain aspects are lacking because we just haven't put that one thing that really needed attention as a priority. It does have a spiral effect if you let too many of these priorities fall off the list and you'll find yourself not really honoring yourself and your family as much as you think you are. Healthy decisions are number one because anything that could potentially harm you by causing emotional or physical distress is not going to help anyone in the long run.  Sometimes it takes a nice long walk or conversation with a friend or loved one to decide if you are happy with the way things are or if you could be making life altering choices one day at a time. The great way to look at it is that there is never a wrong time to make the right changes to put you on track to living the best life possible!

Value Yourself Enough

An interesting lesson that seems to be present in almost everyone's life is that of learning when to let go of certain relationships when we come to the hard realization that they no longer have a benefit in our lives. As creatures of comfort and habit, even bad habit, we find ourselves in friendships or other types of relationships in which we feel like the end result is more work than anything else and the gain is so small that it doesn't add anything positive to our lives but in fact cause lots of negative stress instead. I don't think that every relationship is always supposed to be or is ever going to be all fun and games, it's a balance of give and get and the rewards should be seen and felt within that relationship in order for it to maintain a healthy role in your life. We know the odd family member or friend who never really feels comfortable engaging in gatherings or the overzealous friend who never has a bad day, and we wonder silently to ourselves what planet they came from. These relationships are found in every person's life and we learn how to put them into unique categories, some in the category of will see once in awhile and others in the category of will see more often. These are not huge drains on us emotionally and actually add some fun and an element of change to our lives and we usually embrace them for what they are. The type of relationships I am talking about totally getting rid of are the ones that make you doubt your self-esteem, use up all of your energy so that you feel exhausted mentally, and leave you feeling depressed or guilty every single time you are engaged in the relationship. There comes a time when you must choose your well being, time and energy and overall happiness over any relationship that continuously challenges that. Only you know what you are willing to accept before getting to that point but once you learn to value yourself enough, the answers become very clear and walking away from these relationships feels like a weight has been lifted from you and you are ultimately making room for much more healthy ones to come into your life.

Flowing with Change

I have always struggled with change in my life because I was the person who always needed the security in knowing the What, Where, When and Why of everything before I could relax and feel at ease with any situation. This type of thinking can really wear down even the most tolerant of friends and family not to mention yourself. It feeds a selfish tendency to always need or expect that the outcome will be something that I could just plan for so that I could be ready and not get caught off guard. The thought of taking situations as they came or letting things unfold naturally was a foreign concept for me, of course I didn't realize it at the time, which is so often the case when finding out just what our biggest hang ups are and coming to terms with destructive behaviors that we have unknowingly encouraged for so long. I am one of those who could never easily see my behavior unless I was given examples of how I acted in certain situations and then eventually you have an A-HA moment. When it clicks, you really finally see that You have been the sole driving force in putting up your own roadblocks and it wasn't anyone else's fault but your own. The deep seeded root cause most of the time comes down to not being able to surrender control. If we looked a little closer we'd be able to see that thinking we have control, is an illusion in itself and we just keep perpetuating that illusion because it gives us comfort, even if it's a false sense of security. I could have cared less to know this information at the time because I was better off with a false sense of comfort, no matter how ridiculous it became, than having the unknown lead the way. The more I grow spiritually the more I see that the unknown can be freedom in so many ways and ultimately a way of living without anxiety and having to control everything around me. It feels like so many burdens and barriers have just been dropped from my mind and shoulders too, if I just let things play out the way they should. It took the eye opening lesson of having to deal with my darkest fears as they presented themselves and kept asking myself, what is the worst case scenario. Once I accepted what that was, next I began to see that just because this worst case scenario could happen doesn't mean it will happen. I then evaluated the odds and each time I did this , the odds just never were convincing enough to make me believe that the outcome was going to be negative. So when you do this time and time again and you start to replace the negative scenarios instead with the best case scenarios, you choose the one that makes you feel happy and relaxed over the one that takes you to that dark place of anxiety and worry. It does have to be a decision that you make time and time again and it is one that took me many years to train myself to do but make no mistake, it can be done if you are willing to do the work. Just like anything else that you want to become good at, you need to practice and put yourself into environments in which you can put that practice to use or you won't know if you are getting better or not. Once again moving out of your comfort zone no matter how scary it feels, will be the key to learning how to just let yourself and everyone around you "just Be."





Inner Peace

I was never taught, like most of us, how to find inner peace. I never really thought much about inner peace or had the need for it, or so I thought. Years later, when I started to read every self-help book that I could find, I saw the reoccurring theme of meditation and how it could transform your life. I took up the practice of meditation very early on because it was something that was around me when I was growing up. My father was on his own spiritual journey and had many of these books around the house. He also practiced meditation and yoga but never thought to teach it to me thinking more that I would learn that through observation, which I did. I did have to seek it out in my own time and be ready for it or the concept never would have stuck for me. Having a creative mind means that it's always going, thinking when it shouldn't be and finding a way to turn it off is a challenge for most. I found myself trying to make sense of so many overwhelming thoughts but not knowing how to do that. I felt like I always had 10 things going on at once but no way to put enough energy into those things to ever make them truly fulfilling. It seems like everyone has become busier and the more things to keep us occupied and not sit still, the better. I've only recently learned that stillness is not only helpful but a requirement for me to be able to recharge my creative side and use it to its full potential. I have to carve out time to relax my mind and unwind otherwise I would never be able to find a good time to do that. There have been times when I've been in public places and felt like I couldn't think in my own mind. I found this happening a lot especially in crowded, loud places and it made me withdraw from going to these places because I always felt confused afterwards. It can be more than confusing, it can be very draining and make you feel more tired and exhausted than you really are or should be. I started to try to find ways to relax on a deeper level where I could feel my brain turning off for at least 30 min. at a time. I did my research on all the different types of relaxing music, aromatherapy, meditation, and massage. A combination of all of these things are what I find works best for me. Anyone looking to find their own peace within, will probably have a different combination of things that will work for them. These are tried and true ways and have been tested over time to get the best results. They all work really well. Another way to find peace and quiet is to be out in nature by yourself. Taking walks on the beach or in a park to help you to reconnect to the world around you which helps ease anxiety and tension. I've also found deep breathing to be helpful and restorative. I started to realize and see the results very quickly after I started doing these things and that's usually how it works, when you see results you get excited. So I keep this part of my routine and the benefits far outnumber any health issues or stresses that I might be dealing with. I really believe in having the positive things outweigh the negative in any situation. So if you find yourself bogged down by negativity, the only real way to overcome that is to tip the scale in the other direction. The more that you can find the helpful, healing, positive energy, the more your mind will move into that direction. The more positivity that you surround yourself with the easier it will become to stay in that positive mindset. It isn't always easy when you are surrounded by negativity to find things that you are grateful for or happy about but that is the key, and training yourself to do this will pay off each and every time you find yourself in a negative situation. You always see people out in the world everyday who don't seem affected by the things that go on around them and for some it might just be that they don't care but for most of us, it's a conscious choice that we have to make on a daily basis. The internet has made researching and finding videos and music and other helpful resources so easy to find now, the information is practically right at your fingertips. A great place to start for meditation music and videos is You Tube. It’s not hard to find inner peace but you have to make the effort to get the results.

 

What started me on my inspirational journey

I found myself after years of being able to just go anywhere and do anything that I pleased, to being confined at home, with no one to relate to. It started gradually and got worse over months until I could no longer work without dizziness and severe anxiety. Over the course of three years, I find myself doing better on most days but still having the effects of flare ups, which keeps going the two steps forward and one step back saying running through my mind. I had access to the Internet which was a lifeline for me in many ways. I have become very familiar with website and graphics design over the span of 10 years while I was raising my son. This was my side hobby along with a personal blog that I had started when my son was five. I kept finding myself on Facebook because of the many pages that I found inspirational. It seemed like each day I would LIKE 10 more pages than the day before because I loved the posts that I was seeing. They were so encouraging and beautiful that I couldn't help being motivated everytime I logged in and saw my newsfeed. I thought how amazing is it that there are people out there who take the time to find these quotes and uplifting posts and post them on their pages each day for others to enjoy. I felt such gratitude and an indescribable feeling of excitement and hope that I wasn't able to find anywhere else. Soon I let these images take over my Facebook page and actually my whole newsfeed so that was all that I saw everyday, all day, when I was logged on to Facebook. You could say that I bombarded myself with positivity and rewired my thinking and feeling sorry for myself to trying to find ways to heal myself. I never expected two years later to become one of these pages that would help to inspire others. So it was through this page and dealing with my health issues that I attribute over 50% of my healing to. We always hear about the connection between mind and body, you read about it almost everyday in some new article that says what you think affects how you feel physically. It always looks good and even sounds good but you never realize how true that statement is until you live through it and you actually see and connect the healing of your body with what you allow into your mind. If I wasn't convinced before, I am a firm believer now. I have changed my life in so many ways. Things that used to be the prime focus are no longer a focus and things that I took for granted I make a priority now. It's not always a health issue or a crisis, or at least it shouldn't be, that helps us to get onto the right path but it's always something that makes you search your soul, that leads you in that direction. I really believe that we should be teaching our children in school at a young age about life and the stresses and how to cope with things, I believe it should be a course all by itself, Life 101. We somehow fly by through our teenage years into early adulthood without even thinking twice. It's a hard lesson to learn especially without any skills, when you hit your mid-30s and suddenly your life is turned upside down.

 

Treasured Sentiments in elaborate form

I have been waiting for the right time to start up this blog for many reasons including time restraints, motivation and just plain being overwhelmed. I figured there is no time like the present to just get it going. Why wait? The time is never right but for me living an inspired life is what I have done successfully for many years now and it's time to share that in the form of graphics and quotes and posts about my take on things and how I have incorporated this kind of living into my life. I'm excited to branch out from my usual Facebook forum because it allows for more elaborate explanations on the quotes I often create and use on my facebook page. That page started out of the pure desire to want to give right back to the people who I was like and still am so much like, if not more so now. The inspirational pages found throughout facebook allowed me to seek some sort of peace and seeing some of these postings daily actually gave me the motivation to deal with my health issues in a new way. Suddenly I didn't feel alone and like nobody could relate because I saw people responding to these quotes by commenting and sharing their own stories right there in the comments section of the page. I felt like I wanted to say more than that forum allowed me to say, because I always have a lot to say about everything. This is a challenge at the same time because I am still struggling with nerve damage and so blogging and creating graphics often aggravates things and makes this all a little more of a slow process. I don't mind going slowly and taking my time these days as long as the goal is in focus, within reach, and I am headed in that direction, it's really not a big deal anymore. So here goes, I hope to inspire some and help my creative side have more of a voice. Cheers to the blogging world!

What's a good way to be a blessing to someone?

If you have some good advice or can give a kind word of encouragement, instead of an insult or negative feedback, that's a start. Starting small and doing things consistantly with the goal in mind that you are helping and not hurting in some way, opens the door later to bigger and more meaningful acts of kindness. Imagine leaving someone in a better mood than when you first saw them and use that as a gauge for your interaction throughout the day. The list is an endless one!