Skip to content

Posts from the ‘Abundance’ Category

Oct 5

A Toast!

“Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your happiest, strongest, wisest self.” – Karen Salmansohn

“O Lord that lends me life, lend me a heart replete with thankfulness.” – William Shakespeare

A toast!
To celebrating and encouraging others on our shared journey.
In both victory and defeat.
To generous souls who are with you at the start line, in the middle and at the finish.
To offering and receiving without hesitation, counting or measure.
To goals defined and attained.
To effort, resilience, exhaustion and the strength to keep moving two steps forward and one step back.
To progress and patience in the waiting.
To the capacity and calling to dream and imagine followed by the rigorous pursuit.
To special days and all of the ordinary days in between.
To embracing imperfect people and circumstances to create joyful moments.
A toast to grace, gratitude and generosity.

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.” – Thorton Wilder

Sep 29

Recalculate

“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world. Constantly color your picture gray, and your picture will always be bleak. Try adding some bright colors to the picture by including humor, and your picture begins to lighten up.” – Allen Klein

“Study lends a kind of enchantment to all our surroundings.” – Honore de Balzac

Growth or stagnation?
Contribution or withdraw?
Expansion or contraction?
Possibility or limitation?
Awe or indifference?
Where are your thoughts leading you each day?
What’s true?
What serves unfolding, arriving, homecoming?
Observe what you think and believe.
Question and inquire the roots.
Weeds or flowers?
Recalculate your thoughts.
Grow, contribute, expand, possibility, awe, come home.
Worthy destinations so choose wisely and tune out the rest.

Sep 20

Threshold

“Be slow to speak, and only after having first listened quietly, so that you may understand the meaning, leanings, and wishes of those who do speak. Thus you will better know when to speak and when to be silent.” – Saint Ignatius

Between thoughts and actions lies a threshold, a still point. Guide the direction of your thoughts and attention, anchor in gratitude and abundance. Cross the threshold to actions that contribute, create and multiply. Choose response over reaction. Amplify positive over negative. Release energy over exhaustion.

Observe. Listen. Learn.

“If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.” – Robert Baden-Powell

Sep 14

Harness the Winds

“Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.” – Lauren Bacall

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” – Helen Keller

Set your sails, reset as the wind shifts
Look for good in this day
Create good in this day
Capture good in this day
In thoughts, words, actions
Shine light
Harness
Elevate
Illuminate
Spark
Spirit, soul, heart – lead with these
Kindness, gratitude, grace, joy, delight, generosity are energy and power
Harness, embrace, release them back out.

Aug 30

On Alert

“Every day is a gift from God. Learn to focus on the Giver and enjoy the gift!” – Joyce Meyer

“Opportunities present themselves every day – to everyone. You just have to be alert and ready to act.” – Marc Ostrofsky

Be on alert
Find the squirrel in the tree
The brilliance in the bounty of summer bloom
The regreening of grass from fresh rain
The gentleness in your thoughts
The compassion in your heart
The empathy in your words
The kindness in your actions
Build, create, praise
Be on alert
Your life is happening today.

“Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.” – Horace

Aug 25

No Small Acts

“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” —Mother Teresa

“Remember there’s no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.” —Scott Adams

Never underestimate the power of thoughts and words
Go beyond yourself and encourage others
If you want to change the world, you can today in small acts
Be kind, smile, greet a stranger, call a friend, text encouraging words to a family member
Put aside opinion, judgment and righteousness and be a good human being
We are not called to be doers, busy, efficiently checking off tasks
We are called to be light, peace and joy
Get your mind off yourself, being offended, being owed anything, comparison and counting
It’s a trap that keeps you stuck, shrinks your world
Be generous and suddenly you become rich
What will you leave behind on the path you walk today?
Seeds or weeds
Brighten someone’s day and the sun shines on both

“That is what compassion does. It challenges our assumptions, our sense of self-limitation, worthlessness, of not having a place in the world, our feelings of loneliness and estrangement. These are narrow, constrictive states of mind. As we develop compassion, our hearts open.” —Sharon Salzberg

Aug 24

Your All

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.” – Helen Keller

May the ink run dry in your pen as you write the story of your life
Pouring it all out
Filling blank spaces with poetry, curiosity and messy imperfection
Words of praise
Thoughts of gratitude
Actions of generosity
Show up, participate, give it your all!
Game on.

“Be curious, not judgmental.” – Walt Whitman

Aug 18

Framing and Shaping

“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.” – Victor Hugo
“Life is a moving, breathing thing. We have to be willing to constantly evolve. Perfection is constant transformation.” – Nia Peeples

“Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.” – Victor Hugo

What and how we frame our circumstances, relationships and self in it all defines our daily experience, outlook and attitude. If we focus on what’s missing, on the past, on what’s next, we miss the gift of what is already present and woven in this moment. Cease counting and comparing to gratitude and transformation, moving from controlling and scarcity to framing and shaping.

Optimism, abundance and hope are principles, anchors, ways of living that pull you through difficulties and amplify wonderful seasons. There’s an ebb and flow, up and down, seasons and spinning and meaning in it all. Turmoil, change and transitions lead to transformations, new beginnings and growth. Don’t get caught in the mechanics of life at the expense of experiencing the magic of life.

Frame and shape the material of what is available now. Create something new from the ingredients that you have in and surrounding you in this day. How you approach, frame and shape your daily life is yours alone so do your job, your purpose and answer your own calling.

While in the middle and murkiness, live rooted in the unfailing hope and optimism of new beginnings, transformation and promise of possibilities fulfilled in due time. Let nothing steal your joy. Frame and shape each day armed with gratitude, grace and light.

“The great solution to all human problems is individual inner transformation.” – Vernon Howard

Aug 11

Break Trail

“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” – Confucius

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Veer off trail, explore, wander
Fresh footprints on new land
Crisp air
Bathe and splash in beauty abound
Abundant possibilities
Take the path less traveled
Seize this day.

 

Aug 8

Holy Ordinary

“The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.” — Henry Miller

“Can you see the holiness in those things you take for granted–a paved road or a washing machine? If you concentrate on finding what is good in every situation, you will discover that your life will suddenly be filled with gratitude, a feeling that nurtures the soul.” — Rabbi Harold Kushner

It’s been a dry desert-like summer. Two mornings waking to soaking rain is sweet music. It is greening up the grass, softening the earth, clearing the smoky air from fires in Canada. We appreciate and value things more when they are absent. Gratitude invites us to live life in “real-time” when we are in the midst of it, not in memory.

“Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend… when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that’s present — love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure — the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience Heaven on earth.” –Sarah Ban Breathnach

Daily gratitude brings our blessings that we take for granted or pass by looking for the next thing to the forefront, center stage. Don’t just count your blessings, experience them fully in the moment. Commit to a daily gratitude practice and begin the adventure of abundance, ease and joy. Saying “thank you” throughout this day is a good start.

“You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.” — Sarah Ban Breathnach

« Older Entries
%d bloggers like this: