"You can live your life out of circumstance or you can live your life out of vision." - Werner Erhard Millions of people go home at night to nice homes, nice apartments, nice furniture, nice electronics, even nice bodies beside them, and yet deep in their hearts, they say "God I'm bored." Marianne Williamson says "We long for a more genuinely passionate life, and for a deeper purpose for living it." You're either going away from it or you're going toward it...your destiny. The root of almost every problem of stuck-ness is fear. Either fear of getting started, fear of perfectionism, fear of responsibility, fear of not finishing, fear is at the root. So the question for you is… What have you come here to do with your life? What is your calling? Do you have that feeling inside you that says, "if I don't do this I may simply die." And if you do answer the calling, beware (and be aware!)! It's not going to be a day at the beach. Expect disappointment, expect to be challenged, expect to be hurt, expect to be double guessing yourself, it will be a road of trials. But at the end of the road...pure glorious joy and passion. SOOOOO...is THAT worth it?
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 This woman is someone who I was drawn to because she died on my birthday in 2010. March 21, 2010. She looked like a young Elizabeth Taylor with her jet black hair and thick eyeliner. Definitely someone you would think would be IN FRONT of the camera, not behind it. (Here is a photo of Elizabeth Taylor, uncanny huh?!) But Margaret Moth was not your usual human being. Everything she did was out of the ordinary. She wore black clothes, head to toe. Her footwear…combat boots. Add thick black eyeliner and jet black hair. She made an impression!! Margaret Moth was quirky but fearless. She was a war zone journalist and camerawoman. She sought out and demanded assignments in conflict zones…who not only only kept the camera rolling while under fire, but zoomed in on the soldier who was shooting at her. Colleagues learned quickly to appreciate all that this CNN camerawoman was. Beyond her rich personality, which included deep optimism and kindness, she brought to her profession top-notch technical abilities, unmatched dedication and an approach to work that inspired others to push themselves. Then in Sarajevo in 1992 she was shot in the face, and barely survived. It shattered her jaw, blew out her teeth and destroyed a portion of her tongue. This made her sound like she was forever drunk she said. She suffered through multiple reconstructive surgeries as well as hepatitis C that she contracted from a blood transfusion. Was she stopped? No, she went back to Sarajevo six months later carrying a camera. She actually joked that perhaps she would find her teeth. She passed away from colon cancer in 2010 at the young age of 59. "Dying of cancer, I would have liked to think I'd have gone out with a bit more flair," she said with a laugh last spring during an interview with a CNN documentary crew that had traveled to Texas, where she was visiting friends. "The important thing is to know that you've lived your life to the fullest," she said before tubing down a river in Austin, Texas. This video is 9 minutes long, but boy is it worth it!!  A coaching client said to me this week, “I make a decent salary, I live in a nice house, and my car is only four years old, nevertheless, when I compare what I have to others, particularly those more fortunate than I, I begin to feel unhappy and frustrated. This especially comes up when I see no apparent difference between me and the other person.”
Ahhhh…yes…I can relate, can’t you? I too have gotten sucked into that feeling. At an Al-Anon meeting I attended someone said it was called “COMPARE AND DESPAIR” syndrome! Sums it up quite well! In the age of Facebook we now have Facebook envy. So the question is: Is striving to HAVE MORE in direct opposition with BEING GRATEFUL? My opinion is that it depends on WHERE the striving to have more comes from… Is it a grasping, gotta have it feeling? Is it a fleeing, can’t stand it feeling? Is it a retribution, I’ll show them, come hell or high water feeling? Is it a quick fix, I gotta feel SOMETHING feeling? OR Is it in a heart opening, I have got to show the world my true self feeling? Is it a craving to contribute, to serve in a higher way feeling? Is it in a burning, I’ve got to be free feeling? Is in a passionate, I’ve got to live my true authentic self feeling? YOU SEE WHAT I’M GETTING AT? It all comes down to the SOURCE of the movement. I believe that gratitude can cohabitate with wanting more when it comes from the place of living your true authentic self. When you set your sights on the babe, the boat or the bucks, you rarely get a long lasting TRUE happiness. That is what has happened to our society. The GRASPING to have MORE has sucked the SOUL out of us. However, when you are striving to live your life from your true authentic self…to DO better…to SHARE more…to SERVE joyously…that can certainly coexist with gratitude. When feelings and action are heart centered, nothing can go wrong! And when you are being MORE of who you are...you are most likely a lot more GRATEFUL! |
denice chenaultlet yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. -Rumi Archives
February 2018
body & wellness
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