A Better Life.

I found this on Pinterest today and L.O.V.E it, so I wanted to share. . . .

We all have the choice to live this everyday, some days it is easier than others but always worth the effort!  Be Happy!

Time for some fun and play . . .

I have always said fun is a basic need, and it is!  Sometimes I forget this and need a reminder, yesterday I got one J. . . now its time for some fun!!  The responsibilities of life, work, kids, house, bills, etc. can take its toll on our psyche and sometimes we just need to cut loose and have some fun!  We need to find that child like quality that we all have but may have buried deep inside.  Today let it out, GO PLAY! Dance, sing, play a sport or a game, round up some friends for a fun activity, go to the pub, dance around in the park, go to the beach, whatever works for you.  Give yourself permission to have some FUN!  You will be glad you did!!

ENJOY!

Isn't the risk worth it to have no regrets?

What does Faith mean to you?

When I was a little girl saying my prayers my Mom would always say if you don’t know what to pray for, always pray for more faith.  In my little girl mind I thought this meant that I obviously didn’t believe in God enough or that even if I did right now I probably wouldn’t at some point!  As I began to find my own way in this world, the organized religion that I had been brought up in did not seem to be a good fit for me.  No matter how hard I prayed for more faith, it simply was not working for me.  As soon as I let that go and started on my own spiritual path I found the “faith” that was before so elusive much easier to find.  For me “faith” is the belief that God/Spirit (whatever your word is) resides in each and every one of us and that we are all connected in a way that is much larger than the sum of any one of us.  This means that I trust in the Universe, that all that happens in my life and the lives of others is the way it is meant to be (for the greater good).  It doesn’t mean I sit back and let life happen to me, not at all (as anyone who knows me can attest to), but what it does mean is that I am able to accept all of the experiences, good and bad as necessary.  Necessary, for me to learn what I came into this lifetime to learn. I always say to myself, this is your path and this needs to happen for some reason so pay attention.  Learn what you need to learn, let go of what you need to let go of and always move forward.  Having faith also means you need to believe in yourself.  You need to know that you are capable of handling anything that life gives you (because you are!).  I used to be a worrier, but for the most part I don’t anymore (my children and puppy are sometimes exceptions!).  If I start to go back down that path I say “you will deal with the consequences when you need to” (90% of what we worry about never ever comes to pass).  When I have been faced with dealing with something extremely difficult, it doesn’t matter if I worried about it incessantly or was caught by surprise the pain is the same, so why spend all of that energy worrying? Channel it into something productive, like living and loving!!  I encourage you to take some time to consider what “faith” means to you, find a way to reconcile it with your spiritual beliefs and enjoy the peace that it brings into your life!! 

Compassion

“I don’t believe compassion is our default response I think our first response to pain ours or someone else’s is to self protect. We protect ourselves by looking for someone or something to blame or sometimes we shield ourselves by turning to judgement or by immediately going into fix it mode.” –Brene Brown “The Gifts of Imperfection”

“Compassion for ourselves is essential. Where it is absent, we feel fear and self-loathing.  Since it is unbearable to hate ourselves we project that hatred onto the world.  We’d rather be victims of the world than victims of ourselves, and by blaming the world we can avoid the pain of facing ourselves.” –Debbie Ford from Dark Side of the Light Chasers.

We would all like to think that we are compassionate people, we feel bad when others are struggling or have less than we do.  Our hearts hurt for people suffering with horrible diseases or dealing with  difficult family problems.  But do we have this same kind of compassion for ourselves?  Do we forgive ourselves for saying something nasty about someone else, for not always doing what we (or society) say is the right thing. Do we cut ourselves some slack for being late, grumpy, lazy, cynical, angry. . . .the list goes on and on.  I always say no one can say anything worse to me that I haven’t already said to myself.  But in order to fully have compassion for others we must first be able to give it to ourselves.  I have been contemplating and observing this principle in all areas of my life lately.  I believe it is impossible to give anything authentically to anyone else that we do not feel for ourselves. And so my work continues . . .in order to stay true to myself and my beliefs I must learn to cultivate all of these traits in myself so that I can give them to others from my heart.

 

Let me start by saying compassion is not feeling sorry for someone.  When you apply this to yourself, you will see that you do not want people to feel sorry for you, so don’t do it to others, it takes away yours and their power.  Compassion is about acknowledging suffering and pain but having faith that everything in the Universe is playing out as it needs to.  It is about feeling empathy but understanding that each person is responsible for themselves, their decisions, their circumstances and their reactions to whatever life gives them.  I always feel that the best gift you can give someone who is struggling or in pain is to believe in them.  To honor them with love and caring but know that ultimately they are on their own path. So now, as you read these words its time to start applying it to ourselves.  Are we able to say and show ourselves this same compassion?  Are we able to say “everything is as it should be”? Do we believe in ourselves enough to know that we can handle whatever life throws our way? Can we have empathy for ourselves and understand that we are doing the best we can with what we know at this moment? Can we sit with our own pain, real and imagined and not become a victim? OR Are we blaming someone or something for all of the problems in our life? Have we lost faith in ourselves and our beliefs? Are we self protecting by judging or trying to “fix it”?  Its time to start giving the same compassion we seem to so easily give to others to ourselves!! To accept ourselves for the beautiful souls that we are, to understand that we are doing the best we can with what we know right now and have faith that everything will work out just as it needs to. Today, tomorrow and forever. . . Honor yourself with compassion.