Follow your Compass

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”  -Jean-Paul Sartre

 Only you can listen to your own heart. The world can go on revolving around you and no one else can hear what only you can hear.  That’s pretty cool to think about. All you have to do is believe in yourself, and you you’ve got it covered!  You have to trust that your heart is wise and it has the ability to lead you.  Everyone is uniquely created and given their own compass in the form of a heart. To listen to someone else’s compass doesn’t make sense.  Someone else can never be in your shoes. They can never be in the same place as you, so their compass will never be right for you.  Never.  You have to learn to read and understand your own compass.  It takes belief and trust in you.

Be a Hippie

My cat is a hippie.  Her name is Zoey but we call her ZO for short. She found us.  She eats out of a vintage bowl and won’t wear a bell.  Her favorite being is my dog and second to that is my neighbor across the street who she runs to every morning to greet.  She does whatever she wants.  But with respect.  What’s a hippie?  Being a hippie is being someone who has rejected the established culture.   That’s the deep down meaning without all the added connotations.  It doesn’t mean someone has to have a bad attitude and defy culture just to defy culture.  A real hippie has a purpose.  

You could also call it being an artist.  Or being a preacher.  Or being a human-rights activist.  It is doing something that you truly believe in.  Your life follows suit to what you stand for.  So figure out what you stand for.  What do you believe in.  What are you willing to defy the common status quo for?  Don’t live normal.  Adjust your life to show what you believe in.

Do you believe in Unicorns?

“Everything today has been heavy and brown.  Bring me a unicorn to ride about the town.”  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

 I’ve been vacationing in Wisconsin.  It is supposed to be warm here.  I don’t think it knows that.  

I just finished reading Seth Godin’s book, Tribes. He talks about bringing a unicorn into a balloon factory.  Crazy thought.  The balloon factory workers are the status quo.  The unicorn is not.  The unicorn is there to stir everything up and create change.  But people are afraid of change.  The factory will lose balloons if they allow a unicorn inside!   They will lose business that way.  That’s what they think.   They want to stay the same.  They want to keep making balloons the same way that they have always made balloons.

But you can’t stay the same forever.  Businesses can not not change and survive.  Just like people can not not change and survive.  We live in a fast paced world.  If you are not going forward you are going backward.  You cannot stay the same in thought, just like you cannot stay the same in body.   You need to be challenging yourself.  Growing.  Learning.  Exploring.  That is what the unicorn represents.  The Unicorn comes to shake things up.  To introduce change.  To gallivant even.  

What a fun creature the unicorn is!   But you have to believe in them.   I mean some people don’t. Amazing.  They say they aren’t real.  Don’t they know that you have to believe?  Anything can happen if you believe.  Anything is possible if you believe.  Believe in change.  Believe it is good. Believe it brings growth.  Believe in unicorns.

When life hurts

“It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such an unartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style.”  -Oscar Wilde

What do you do when life hits. Hard.  There is no right answer to this question.  People need people.  You give love. Hug.  Hold.  Make food.  Brush hair.  Give flowers.  Buy a stuffed animal.  Pray.  Sit for a long time. Listen.  Hug again.  Cry.  Wipe  tears.  Hold again.  Love again.  Take a walk.  Buy an ice cream cone.  Write things down.  Remember.  Sit on couch pillows.  Laugh at memories. Cry at memories.  Wipe tears.  Go eat.  Walk.  Hold. Cry.  Listen.  Love. Sleep. Leave only when someone else can take over.  Return to love more.  Be a vessel of love.  Be a true friend.  That is what you do when life hits hard.

Renewing your Mind

“Dis-ease  in the body, is dis-ease of the mind.” -Bernard Jensen (health guru)

Good health starts in the mind.   The entire body is connected.  How can you remove your physical side from your spiritual side. Or from your emotional side.  You can’t.  They are all connected.  

Today start with renewing your mind.  When you greet someone, smile.  When someone asks you “How are you today?”  Say “Great!” and mean it.  When someone asks you how you are, it is not an invitation to air all of your problems and worries.    You can go and pay someone to tell your problems and worries too.

 Our body believes what we tell it.  If you say you are great, you will be.  If you say you are miserable, misery comes.  Like attracts like.  Think positive.  Think healthy.  Think happy thoughts.  Claim that for yourself today.  Remember that you have the power to create your own destiny.  You carve out your own path.  You are responsible for only you.  Believe believe believe in the power of good thoughts and words.  They create who you are.

You have to ask

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” -Matthew 7:7

 Ask the Universe to tell you what you need.  It might sound crazy but it’s true.  Believe that you have to ask.  Think about it. When you are in school and you don’t know how to do a problem, you ask.  When you are new at a job and you don’t know how to use the new equipment, you ask.  So when we get stuck in life, what should we do?  Ask!  Cry out to the Universe.  Pray.  Ask believing that you will receive an answer.  And you will.  Do not ask and doubt.  Believe.  You can do nothing unless you believe.  But the reason that so many of us don’t get what we want is because we don’t ask.  How can we hear an answer if we haven’t asked the question?

The Bluebird Wish

When I was a little girl I was a Bluebird. All my friends were Girl Scouts. But I was a Bluebird. What did Bluebirds believe? Here was our motto:

To have fun.

To learn to make things.

To remember to finish what I begin.

To keep my temper, most of the time.

To learn about Nature and living outdoors.

To have adventures with people, places and things.

To make Friends.

 I still abide by this motto.  I’m still a Bluebird.

Make something beautiful every day

Do something scary

“He who is everyday not conquering some fear has not learned the secret to life.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do something you are afraid of today.  Maybe it’s something that you have been putting off for awhile.  Maybe its something new.  But do something scary.    You will grow stronger.  You will learn something.  You will learn that it probably wasn’t really as scary as you thought.  Remember when you were a kid and you would go on the scariest ride at the fair.  Afterwards, you didn’t even think it was that scary and you’d get off and go again 12 more times.  That’s how life is.    When we step outside of our comfort zone we get stretched.  

Time to build some toughness.  Time to take on some things that have been hiding under your bed for awhile.  Do you need to go see that counselor?  Do you need to start that business?  Maybe it’s time to put the house on the market and move to Oregon like you’ve always dreamed.  All in due time.  But remember Emerson’s words today, do something scary today.

Choose exemption!

“Things done well and with a care, exempt themselves from fear.” -William Shakespeare

How do you live?  Do you live free of care and fear and worry?  Most people don’t.  It takes thought to live this way.  It takes motivation and determination.  But once you decide to live this way you will never go back.  

Think about it.  What does worry bring?  Nothing but fear and disease.  All disease starts with worry.  Disease starts in the mind.  So does health.  Health begins with joy, peace, good thoughts and feelings and contentment.   When I say contentment, I’m not saying to sit around and do nothing and feel good about it, that’s being lazy.   I’m talking about a feeling of being satisfied to be yourself.  A joy in knowing that you have a purpose for living and to be grateful to be alive.  That is what I mean.  

We all come into life this way.  Happy.  Kids are generally happy, until they figure out they don’t have what everyone else has.  But a baby is generally happy.  Be this way.  Think this way.  Don’t claim worry or fear or anger  for you.  Claim exemption from these.  Instead fill your mind with love, joy, peace, happiness, good thoughts, self- respect, self-confidence, determination, hard-work, and rest.  Take care of you.  Put a smile on your face and determine to live to your fullest potential!