“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” – Aristotle
“It’s not only moving that creates new starting points. Sometimes all it takes is a subtle shift in perspective, an opening of the mind, an intentional pause and reset, or a new route to start to see new options and new possibilities.” – Kristin Armstrong
A drop in the ocean
A 2-degree shift in direction
A step back
A step forward
A tilt to the right
A twist to the left
A subtle shift
Change your view
In small steps, in new paths, with fresh eyes
Patterns and connections
Abundance, energy and gratitude make their way in
What is already present appears as if for the first time
Take the blinders off
Venture out
Journey within
Lay down your rules
Release expectations
Open to what is available right now
Possibility, beauty and light
Receive it
Cast it back out
“Your most precious, valued possessions and your greatest powers are invisible and intangible. No one can take them. You, and you alone, can give them. You will receive abundance for your giving.” – W. Clement Stone
“A garden requires patient labor and attention. Plants do not grow merely to satisfy ambitions or to fulfill good intentions. They thrive because someone expended effort on them.” – Liberty Hyde Bailey
“Help us to be ever faithful gardeners of the spirit, who know that without darkness nothing comes to birth, and without light nothing flowers.” – May Sarton
A garden unattended fills with weeds. You are the gardener of your own life. Tend to it daily. Water, light, attention, focus, effort. Dig in the dirt, deep to the roots, pull weeds, bury bulbs, feed, prune, tend.
“The hard work of living can make us forget why we’re here until we’re reawakened. As our eyes constrict and dilate all day long, the tangle of living collapses our awareness of all that is precious, which after a time we remember. This constriction and dilation of awareness is an inner form of day following night.”— The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters by Mark Nepo
Abide in this place and space, in the depth of now. See all of it, not just a sliver or snapshot, but all of it. Celebrate progress, growth, joy. We are blessed and need to be reminded of it daily. Steep in gratitude so that life multiples, expands and abundance shows itself in what already is present.
Actively participate in each day in your thoughts, actions, words, in seeds planted. Do not allow the noise of scarcity, comparison, “someday thinking,” expectations, opinions and assumptions to take root in your garden. Tend to your own garden, baptized by presence. Peace, light, beauty is all around. Wake up.
“Our purpose is not to choose between what’s up close and what’s far away, but to let the light of the world shine through our humanness. In spite of our habits and fears, our next ounce of aliveness takes form from immersing ourselves completely in the moment at hand, the way a cup dipped in a lake is filled with fresh water. This baptism of presence—of being bent by experience to dip the cup of our life into the water of life—fills and awakens us.”— The Book of Soul: 52 Paths to Living What Matters by Mark Nepo
“The meaning of life is not to be discovered only after death in some hidden, mysterious realm; on the contrary, it can be found by eating the succulent fruit of the Tree of Life and by living in the here and now as fully and creatively as we can.” – Paul Kurtz
“The temptation is strong to remain in the Zone of Excellence; it’s where your own addiction to comfort wants you to stay. It’s also where your family, friends, and organization want you to stay. You’re reliable there, and you provide a steady supply of all the things that family, friends, and organizations thrive on. The problem is that a deep, sacred part of you will wither and die if you stay inside your Zone of Excellence.”― Gay Hendricks, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level
All that you need is right inside of you in this moment, beyond old narratives, expectations and limitations imposed by others and self. Take your power back from your feelings and circumstances. Make your ceilings new floors to enter your genius, a natural flow and deep well within, your calling, your gifts, where you bear good fruit. Keep at it until you figure it out through imperfect action and fresh thinking. Expand into abundance, reject scarcity and cynicism.
“We keep ourselves so tied up in regretting the past and fearing the future that we don’t have any energy left to figure out who we are and what we want to create right now.”— Gay Hendricks
Stop accepting less, get to work, keep learning and take action. Plant seeds today, bear good fruit tomorrow.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ― Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of “A Course in Miracles”
“Most of us today were parented and socialized in such a way that, by the time we reach adulthood, our Genius is so covered over with shoulds and shouldn’ts that we often don’t know where to look for our Juno, our Genius, our authentic self. In fact, the whole notion seems questionable. Is there really such a thing as an “authentic self,” a “real self”? I say yes. Perhaps it is suppressed or scuffed up, but it can be liberated; it can be polished. I have personally experienced this. after years of trying and failing, and then trying more and succeeding by fits and starts, I know now that when I get my small ego and my frightened reactivity out of the way, my authenticity, my soulfulness, will rush in and fill the confines of my being. It will guide my steps and gratify even the toughest times with a sense of meaning. Your Juno or Genius must be courted. Although it is strong and luminous, your guardian spirit is unassuming and even shy. It responds to persistent yet kindly biddings. Once awakened, it outshines everything false within you and in your life. But it needs room and time to stretch as it stirs. Your Juno, your Genius, they know who you are—they know you suffer from a case of mistaken identity.”— Marrow: A Love Story by Elizabeth Lesser
Beyond our emotions, circumstances and ego, abundance, energy and light wait patiently for our return. Suspend and release limiting beliefs, momentary moods and move into the expanse and depth of your Juno – your Genius.
Mindset is important, but “soul-set” is the path. Tend to your soul garden daily through meditation, reflection and exploration. Allow thoughts and feelings that bind, limit and tether to come, go and pass on by, making space for equanimity, ease and light.
Excellent 3 minute talk on aligning with the energy of abundance on Insight Timer to get you moving into this day with your GPS set and headed in the right direction. Realign, start fresh, embrace your Juno and enjoy the ride.
“You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.” – Pema Chodron
“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
― e.e. cummings
What do you see? The grey clouds or blue skies peeking through. Or both. What you look for, you find. If you look for the blue, you find it, not denying the grey, for the clouds make the blue even more brilliant. Take off old glasses and put on new glasses to see the same in a new light.
Become aware of your thoughts, words, what you see and do not see. Who influences you, who inspires, who leads you away from you? Return to yourself and keep on the path to becoming, unfolding and discovering. Look and listen without judgment or assumption, allowing wonder and awe to make their way through the cracks of time and experience. Create new experiences.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.” – Mary Oliver
Keep paying attention to find new things that are not ahead or behind but all around and available in this very moment.
“may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it’s sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there’s never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile”
― e.e. Cummings, e.e. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962
“Not what we have But what we enjoy, constitutes our abundance.” – Epicurus
“The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little.” – Ben Sweetland
On our walk around Como Lake yesterday, Lynn asked a woman who was holding a camera with a very large lens, “what are you looking for?” Without hesitation, she responded “everything.” What an awesome answer! Rather than being uncertain, specific or narrow, she set her expectations high – EVERYTHING!
Hurried and unaware, we move swiftly through our days in a flurry of activities and tasks, barely observing or acknowledging what’s right in front of us. We assume life is happening “to” us rather than “for” us. The menu of what we can feast on each day is abundant through a lens of gratitude and adventure.
If someone asked you that question today – “what are you looking for?” – what would your answer be? I’m changing mine from “I don’t know” to “everything.” In setting that expectation and intention, I will surely find more than nothing and something.
Use your wide-angle and zoom lens each day to search, invite and welcome in the beauty, mystery and delight woven and hidden in plain sight. Suddenly nothing becomes everything.
“The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.” – Marianne Williamson
“My appointed work is to awaken the divine nature that is within.” – Peace Pilgrim
“To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually.” – Eckhart Tolle
To get flowers, you need to plant seeds, to bury bulbs in the dirt. Weeds need no help. They sprout on their own and can easily take over our landscape if we allow. Flowers require intention, attention and nurturing to flourish and bloom. Plant good seeds to take root and sprout to overshadow the weeds. Flowers and weeds will always co-exist. Nurture the flowers, stop feeding the weeds.
To arrive at a higher elevation, a steady state of joy and contentment, we need to focus on the flowers as we coexist with the weeds. It’s not enough to pull the weeds of negativity. Weeds keep coming back (our thoughts, other people, circumstances). We need to plant the seeds of optimism to absorb the energy and beauty of flowers.
Infuse positive thoughts, allow optimism to do its work. Get out of weed-only existence and dance in the field of flowers, open your lungs and breathe it in. Dance here awhile, every single day.
“Without change, something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly.” – Richard Bach
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
We have been out of our comfort zone for a year now.
The pandemic has put us into this place.
Or has it?
We are stuck.
Or are we?
Question your assumptions, dare to entertain a different answer, flip the narrative.
Go deeper.
The pandemic is certainly not nothing and it is also not everything.
We long for certainty, take comfort in familiarity and sameness to ground us.
Were we comfortable and content before the pandemic?
When the pandemic is over, you’ll need another excuse.
Difficulty makes us grateful for what is gone.
Gratitude can be a way of life rather than a momentary feeling.
What we think serves us, often binds us.
Scarcity, fear, negativity, assumptions, stories, a pandemic justify our “stuckness,” frame our view, limit possibility.
In protecting ourselves from uncertainty, chaos of circumstances, unreasonableness of others, not us of course, we create blind spots and live small.
We long to figure out the ending before we take a step, find comfort in blame and try to organize life into boxes we can label and understand.
It’s exhausting, isn’t it?
We are meant for joy, light and fruition.
Born with a purpose and purposes, with talents and gifts to give away not to bury.
To move forward pre, middle and post pandemic and any other life transition and transformation, we must lay down what we think has served us well.
Moving forward does not negate the past, it honors it by living in the present and writing a deeper narrative by taking hold of the pen and finishing our own story.
Move into the day from a place of abundance, a thirst for mystery and a capacity for joy.
Open up to ambiguity, uncertainty and possibility found in a blank page, in the confidence and trust that we are built for metamorphosis, going from cocoon to butterfly hundreds of times though life.
Finding the holes, problems and gaps in our life, in others and in the world traps us in rearview mirror living, scarcity and cynicism. Identify and integrate the lessons and move to the next grade by applying them. Open up to new learning and expansion. Release offenses both received and given to transform the holes into wholehearted joyful daily living.
There is no real comfort in comfort zones. Ground in abundance and optimism, fueled by light and energized by possibility.
Brave, bold and brilliantly break the patterns and narratives that bind and restrict. Dare to be enthusiastic and optimistic found in wholeness rather than holes. Abundance, possibility and joy right now, today, not delayed for tomorrow, not post-pandemic or “someday” when things are perfect (not happening). From the comfort zone of the cocoon to the flight of the butterfly.
This is what my Dad would call a “kick in the ass” post. We need those now and again to wake up. I need it daily and miss him daily so this one is for you Dad.
“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” – Marcus Aurelius
“In the time one is given, the steward must make the most of the talents one is given by the Lord.” – Gloria Macapagal Arroyo
Pause.
Allow the river of life to wash over you;
Wander over race;
Observe over absorb;
Float over flail;
Gently hold over clenched fist;
Flow over upstream;
A net catching only what is necessary, releasing what cannot be held.
Shift.
Control to influence;
Map to compass;
Questioning to intuition;
Ownership to stewardship;
What we steward is cast forward, multiplied, remains through time.
Accept.
Cool water in the desert;
Blessings woven in burdens;
Depth beneath the surface;
Less becomes more;
What we grip, binds;
What we hold, embraces.
Steward your time, gifts, talents well;
Time is flowing, make the most of this life.
“Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” – Jorge Luis Borges
“Everything can be taken from a man or woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Viktor E. Frankl
"Cast Light" is a call to release your inner light, your true self every day. Choose light and cast it to the world.
Featured Quotes
“I travel light. I think the most important thing is to be in a good mood and enjoy life, wherever you are.” – Diane von Furstenberg
“In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” – Les Brown
“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” – Joyce Meyer
