beliefs

Well, now that Halloween’s over, that can only mean one thing – the holiday season is here.  Thanksgiving and all that food you either have to make or the flurry of travel to the relative or friends house.  All that last minute preparation and/or packing.  The stress of just getting family together, let alone whether the gravy will come out lumpy or if you should try that new recipe for pumpkin pie.  And, there’s all that shopping and fighting crowds and AAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHH.

If you get stressed out every year at this time, you are going to get stressed out this year also.

UNLESS

You try a different approach.  It’s really that easy.  For example, if you’re not sure of the recipes for the Thanksgiving meal practice them in smaller quantities on your family now.  Make that new pumpkin pie recipe and serve it to your family.  You can make homemade cranberry sauce in advance and freeze it, same with whipped sweet potato casserole.

Now, if it’s the family dynamics that makes you crazy – you have control over this one too.  While you don’t have any control over what your nutty relatives do or say, you can control how you react.  Don’t let them bother you.  If you usually get aggravated – just don’t let that happen.  You are in full control of your emotions, they can’t control your emotions no matter what they do.  Just set the intention before the holiday that you are going to fully enjoy the day – no matter what happens.  If the turkey is over or underdone – so what, if Aunt Betty drinks a bit too much hard cider – so what, if someone spills wine on your new tablecloth – you get the point – so what?

Practice this now.  Pick a day and just set the intention that you are going to enjoy your day – no matter what.   If you’re stuck in traffic and that normally ticks you off – let it go.  Pop in your favorite CD or audio book and enjoy the time.   You get the picture – turn what is usually a negative into a positive.

You’ll be amazed how it changes your day…..

And success cannot elude you.- Carrie Wilkerson, The Barefoot Executive.

Thank you Carrie for reminding me that I have failed at so many things and couldn’t be happier about that. It means that I’m that much closer to my success. But, also, it reminded me that I really don’t like using the word failure. Because I don’t think I failed at any job or business or relationship. I just think that I didn’t achieve the results I had thought I was going to achieve.

A short story to make my point. The Wright brothers wanted to conquer the sky – to give wings to man so that he could forever soar with the birds. They did achieve gliding, but real flight – that they failed at. But, perhaps they should be remembered as two of the most successful failures in history.

What!! How dare I make that claim? Well, because through research I have come to find out that a man by the name of Glenn Curtiss was really the father of modern day airplanes. Mr. Curtiss, along with a mastermind group that included a Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, designed a plane he called the June bug that not only took off under its own power, but stayed aloft and actually flew.

I think more importantly than that, Glenn Curtiss’ planes were also as safe as aircraft could be in those days, compared to planes made with the Wright Brothers design. Planes made by the Wright Brothers had a nasty tendency to crash and kill their pilots due in part to an error in the design of the wings. This made the Wright Brothers a bit cranky and they wound (well, the surviving Wright brother) wound up suing Mr. Curtiss for stealing their patented plane design until World War 1 came along and the government stepped in and told both parties to kiss and make up because they needed planes to use in battles.

In closing, although Wilbur and Orville failed to make safe planes – they made a name for themselves that history will long remember.

So, I embrace failure – or should I say – I embrace not achieving my desired outcome – And you should too!

Here’s the thing about this post – be yourself. The Beatles took the country by storm with their long hair, their music and everything that made them Beatles. They were truly different and truly themselves. Then, the Rolling Stones came along and although they were from England, they didn’t try to be Beatles. They are different, their music is different and they are truly always themselves.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (Beatles song reference:) – but what does this have to do with me, Lee Ann, get to the point.

Be yourself. There’s immense power in being truly who you are. When you can honestly say that you don’t care what others think of your actions because you know that you are acting in true accordance with your true self. Mick Jagger knew that his success was in NOT being like Paul McCartney – and he was right.

This being yourself can be very tricky. I know for a long time I tried to fit in with the crowd. I socialized with a group of ladies, but I never quite fit in. I joined their bowling league, their mah jongg club – I tried to talk about subjects they talked about, have their interests become mine – and I was miserable. It just was a bad fit, they really didn’t like me. And, here’s the kicker – I thought it was me!! I thought that there was something wrong with me and if I could just fix it, I would fit in. What was wrong with that picture? Everything!!  When I realized that I couldn’t deny who I was and and trying to “fit in” would just not work – I realized it was impossible to fit in because I was hanging with the wrong crowd.

When I changed who I hung out with – I was liked for who I was.  There was nothing wrong with me.

That’s the lesson.  And, it involved a tough decision.  I had to basically make all new friends, and I was lonely for a while.  But, the friends I have now – are truly soul mates.  I enjoy their company, nothing is forced.  And it feels wonderful.

In a previous post I said that your past doesn’t exist to harm you.  That is true.  The only reason it’s there is to be a rudder, a guidance.  If you cut yourself – the skin closes quickly.  If it stayed open for a long time bacteria would flood in, which would end in your eventual demise from a massive infection.

Same with a mental wound – it needs to close.  Your only takeaway from a wound is what you can learn from it.  Use the wounding not to punish and beat yourself up – but as a wise teacher that has taught you an important lesson.  In my life I have had to forgive people who wounded me.  I learned that from my wounds I gained strength as I realized that they had no power over me.  When I realized that they were just events and they didn’t define me as a person.  When I could truly say that I love,  honor and respect myself too much to let events and circumstances define me.

Therefore your past is a present, a gift.   It’s a gift to learn a lesson from.    If you felt abandoned because you’re parents divorced – realize that their divorce had nothing to do with you and everything to do with their relationship.  Let that feeling of abandonment go and accept the fact that you are the same good person you were before the divorce.

You are awesome.  Gotta love that.  🙂

And, if you want to attract the good stuff into your life – you gotta believe it.

Consider this thought for the day.  If you cut yourself shaving you don’t use your conscious mind to heal that wound, do you?  You can’t tell your blood to clot, your cells to form a scab, new cells to generate to create new skin – you don’t consciously do any of that – it just happens with perfect precision.

If you have an emotional wound – then why would you try to use the same mind that can’t heal a cut to heal your emotional wound?  You can’t and never will be able to.  Instead you have to just let your subconscious mind do what it’s meant to do.  Your part in the process?  To neutralize any opinion of the wound.  In other words don’t qualify it as having any size or that it is good or bad.  Instead, think of the wound as just being or think of the event that caused the wound as just neutral.  The event was neither good nor bad – it just was.  It is your build up of that event that gives it energy.  You can neutralize that negative energy by just saying to your Self that it was merely an event.  The only power or energy it has to harm you is what you give it.   So, choose to give it none.

This is not to say that an event like segregation or slavery isn’t “bad”.   However, consider the woman who is segregated and then grows tired of being looked down on and acts accordingly.  Let’s give that woman a name – Rosa Parks.  Rosa was not the only woman of color to be segregated – they all were.  However, Rosa  through her action, united a world that put the wheels in motion so that segregation as she knew it would cease to exist.  Therefore for Rosa – that act of segregation was good, not just for her, but for all her brothers and sisters of color.

This is proof that it is never the event that is “good” or “bad”, but our reaction to it instead.

It’s something to think about…

After I posted yesterday, I sat and thought about what was going on.  Then a voice popped into my head – it came from a seminar I just attended – “Whatever experience you are having – you created it – you need to take 100% responsibility and just ask yourself why you are choosing to have that experience.”

So many times things go badly and we’re inclined to say &*^$ happens.  I’ve learned that’s a dangerous place to be because it strips you of all your power.  If you believe that stuff just happens to you, then you are operating from a victim mentality.  Then, you get to blame other people – again – not a good place to be.

And, I knew all the above – and yet I still chose to react badly to the experience of the day.  I know now why I did that.  It was to raise my awareness.  When I realized and admitted that whatever was happening I had the CHOICE to react with either a positive or negative attitude – it all changed.  I simply realized that I could choose to feel positive and WHAM-O – I felt better.  The anger dissipated – it was just neutralized.

I went from being frustrated and pissed off to being grateful for other things in my life that were going right.

So, when the (*^& is hitting the fan – ask yourself – why am I choosing to have this experience?  Then focus on some of the things that are going right.  Some days, it’s tough, I know – so I focus on the fact that I have a roof over my head, hot and cold running water, a loving family – hey, when you start looking for good stuff, sometimes you gotta dig.  But, you’re digging in the right place to fill your heart and your mind with positive energy.  And, that feels so much better, try it – you’ll see.

I knew all