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Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Recipe For A Good Life



THIS RECIPE IS MEANT FOR SHARING

"Bottomless Good Life"

1 Peaceful Mind
1 Heartful of Love
1 Big Heaping Scoop of Laughter
1 Mouthful of Kind Words
Unlimited Amount of Compassion
Hugs and Kisses to Desired Amount

Recipe tastes best with all natural, organic ingredients. Add your own choice of spices and sweetness as desired.

     I was listening to a radio show today where the guest was discussing ways to map out your life to be happy, reach your goals and become successful.  Somewhere along the conversation she brought up a very interesting metaphor about having a recipe to reach goals.  If she gave a group of ten people a generic recipe for success, she said, everyone would follow the basic recipe, but most would substitute or add or remove a few of the ingredients to make it their own.  This got me thinking. Living life is like cooking a dish.  And we're all invited to the potluck. 

     The more I thought about it, the more I realized that if I were to share my recipe for a good life, some people may make it gourmet, some would make it more simple, while still others might add their own cultural flair to it, but everyone will have created a Good Life dish that for the most part had the same ingredients, just that the flavors of each one would be slightly different.  A Good Life whipped up according to each person's tastebuds.


     Life can taste as good as you want it to.  The more quality ingredients you add to your Good Life dish, the better it's going to taste.  The more love and sweetness you pour into it, the more  happiness you're going to get out of it.  The more compassion, service and kindness you mix in, the more satisfaction and fulfillment you will receive in return.  Make sure to balance the dish out with enough hugs and kisses and your recipe will be award-winning. 

    


     Just thought I'd give you some food for thought.  What kind of life are you cooking up?  Is it a recipe your loved ones will want to hand down from generation to generation?  If so, share it with us and be generous with it -- recipes like this should not be kept secret.  Our world needs more Good Life passed around, and everyone is hungry for some. 


     Bon Appetit! And raise your glass to a delicious serving of Good Life.
    
On This Note:  If you have a gift for cooking delicious meals, share your dishes with your local shelter or church.  There are so many hungry children and adults who depend on these locations for their next meal. 


I hope this blog motivates at least one person to find their courage and start moving toward making their dream come true!

Please feel free to leave me a comment below and provide your feedback. I would love to hear from you.





Tuesday, May 8, 2012

The Power Behind Your Thoughts

    
     A penny for your thoughts.  Those composed arrangements swirling around in our minds have been the subject of books, plays and song.  We give them credibility by aligning them with a feeling.  We rely on them to act.  Without them we would be a blank slate.  Thoughts are the source of ideas and the energy behind creation. So, if a thought can fuel the engine that keeps us running, maybe we should think twice about what we ARE actually thinking about.

     Most thoughts come and go as quickly as we conjure them up.  Some of them, especially the ones that deal with our current situation, keep coming back around; even keep us awake at night.  Others are thoughts of dreams and things we'd like to achieve, but see them as far from reach. So how important are these thoughts we have?  First, let's break down what a thought actually is. As best as I can define, a thought is made up a preconceived idea or belief.  It is then affirmed by a feeling we have attached to it.  The definition of a thought as found on dictionary.com is:  the product of mental activity; that which one thinks. In quantum physics, one might say a thought is made up of particles and energies conceived from a stream of events sending electric waves of data to the brain which serves as the decoder for a thought to arise. It's how I sum it up anyways -- please correct me if I'm wrong.  I tried to find a more simplified definition from the man himself Deepak Chopra, but honestly I wasn't in the mood to click and rummage through 10,0000+ Google hits. 

     What I  did come to the conclusion was that if our thoughts are arranged from everything we have lived through, learned about, and even brainwashed by, then we can control what we think.  We are who we are and where we are because of our thoughts.  We have external factors, of course, predisposed upon us as part of life, but how we experience those factors, and what we create as a result of them, are simply made up by the thoughts that we have.  For instance, growing up without a father, is one thing, but when a fact such as he abandoned his children or he died from a terrible disease is introduced to the child, the thoughts revolving around the absence of the father creates a very personal experience to that child which more likely than not will bare a significant influence on the decisions, actions and reactions in the life ahead. The thoughts will revolve around not having had a father growing up for whatever reason made it a fact, thus creating a life forged by thoughts and executing feelings and emotions behind them.  There is great power behind your thoughts.

     Earlier I mentioned that we can control what we think -- but only when we realize that thoughts are a product of what we believe, or want to believe.  Let's take the fatherless child who may have suffered through childhood without a father.  Once everything the child knows about why dad was not around is dealt with and released, the thoughts associated with not having a father growing up will begin to dissolve because no longer is the child, perhaps now an adult, attached to being fatherless -- the emotions and the feelings begin to heal. Thoughts change, perhaps comforting ones begin to prevail and a new set of thoughts are introduced, in this case happier ones.   The external factors are still there, but the internal feelings attached to one's thoughts no longer follow the pattern of suffering, all because of a change in thinking.

     Everything you are reading now has come from my thoughts conceived by what I have come to know, lived and experienced, influenced by what and who I read, and what I believe.  These are my thoughts, and I choose to introduce positive thinking because its simply better to rationalize the life around me in that manner, than to have negative thought patterns surround me.  It brings to mind a quote from Dr. Wayne W. Dyer's book There's A Spiritual Solution To Every Problem, "I'd rather have this, than that."  It encompasses the idea that in any given situation where something has gone terribly wrong, I can choose to observe, accept and experience it with a positive mind that will give me the strength and courage to face the test rather than be succumbed by pain, misery and live in a state of destitution all because I attached it to a negative feeling and emotion.   No matter what, the fact remains, but how I rise from it will be a result of how my thoughts carry me through. 

If you think this is the way it has always been and dare not challenge that thought, then it will always be so; unless you think you can change it from what you have always known it to be.


     The power behind your thoughts is immense.  You can rise or fall, win or lose, succeed or fail; you may even experience all of these things simply because of the power of your thoughts.  It has been discussed at length in the Law of Attraction, introduced to millions in The Secret, and written for centuries in the Bible stories, myths and taught by great philosophers. This is not a new age way of thinking and certainly not a new discovery -- it is and always has been known that the mind thinks before we speak, before we act, before we create.  How you think, however, is simply up to you. Where will your thoughts take you today and lead you tomorrow? Yes, that's it!  Only good thoughts from now on.  Remember, as you think, so shall you be (as paraphrased and quoted by many before me).

On This Note:  You are powerful beyond measure, so be generous with loving thoughts and observe all the beauty you will materialize.


I hope this blog motivates at least one person to find their courage and start moving toward making their dream come true!

Please feel free to leave me a comment below and provide your feedback. I would love to hear from you.

Wednesday, May 2, 2012

How Does Your Garden Grow?



"Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

how does your garden grow?
with silver bells and cockle shells
and pretty maids all in a row."

     This eighteenth century English lyric was once a favorite of mine as a child.  I had a thick hardcover book of poems from a collection of the World Book Encyclopedia set, and this rhyme, to me, had a fun, flowing jingle to it when I read it.  Although, I had no idea what it meant or the supposed reference to Mary Queen of Scots at the time. 

     But even so, though knowing a bit about its history, that's not what it brings to mind now.  It comes to mind because it reminds me to examine my own personal garden. As I stop to contemplate the words of the poem itself, I realize that just like Mary is quite contrary, there is a revealing aspect of my own self spoken in those words.  Noticing where I have gone against my true feelings in order to go along with popular culture rather than vice versa, I neglected the sanctity of my very own personal garden. 

     Earth is a garden of souls, with each soul inhabiting life and growing their own gardens.  Some souls have spoiled their own gardens and look onto others' and try tending to those instead.  Some souls have just let their gardens dry up, while on the opposite side of the spectrum some have flourished and thrived enough to share their supple crops with anyone who so desires.  Where does my garden fall into?  Where does yours?

     Well, I started out planting seeds that were true to me, and along the way I took a peek at my neighbors' and friends' garden and began to envy some of their crops so I may have taken some of their seeds to grow in my garden; only to discover that because they were seeds that were not a part of my nature, they either refused to grow or wilted when they did. As I left that behind me and replanted my garden, this time I went with what I thought was good for me, still trying to fit in.  The garden grew, I achieved some plentiful crops, but I never stored any for a  rainy day.  When I came across a bad season, I had nothing to fall back on. My garden was empty, dry, and the soil was no good for planting more.  This is where the refrain of "You reap what you sow" comes to mind. 

     So how does my garden grow now?  By experiencing all the varied seasonal temperaments over the course of so many years (lets not say how many), I have learned the ups and downs of tending to the garden of my life.  I have learned how to enrich the soil, and know how important it is to keep weeds at bay, water it as needed, never overdoing it, and making sure it has plenty of sunlight with just enough shade and cover from the harsh weather.  Some people are natural born gardeners.  I am definitely not one of them.  Or was I... but maybe somewhere along the way I must have decided to rely on a modified and artificially produced way of living that I forgot how to?  Well, I am back to the basics.  It turns out that when it comes to my garden, I happen to be growing it just as I like it -- planting what is good for me, and harvesting all the wonderful naturally grown rewards from it.  And yes, I now remember to store a portion of those for when the seasons don't necessarily behave as expected.

     I realize I talk a lot about life and its ups and downs, and how I apply different metaphors with the same twist and turns on life.  But let's face it, life is the biggest mystery of all, and we all have that in common -- we are living it, and for the most part we are trying to live it as best we could. That's why I write about it.  And this time around, I choose to describe life as a garden.  After all, it is true that we reap what we sow, and even a rosebush can be admired with all its thorns... okay, maybe this last one doesn't quite apply to what I'm trying to explain here, but nevertheless, my life garden does have a few rosebushes growing in it!  How does your garden grow?

On This Note:  The richness of your life will spring forth from the seeds you plant in the garden which you grow. 
 I hope this blog motivates at least one person to find their courage and start moving toward making their dream come true!

Please feel free to leave me a comment below and provide your feedback. I would love to hear from you.