Thinking Diva

Recently in a moment of awareness I discovered that it is easier to see the negative nature of others than it is to see my own negativity. I realized a few months back that I was deliberately putting out there that I did not want to be in a relationship when in fact I do, I was too scared to admit it to myself. The truth is I love being in a relationship, I enjoy having one man in my life and have never enjoyed dating several people while in search of a fit. I made a conscious decision over the past two years that I wanted to make healthier choices and the key for me was to become completely comfortable with myself first by not dating. In doing so I convince myself I didn’t want to date, but in truth I wanted to become a healthier person first so that I could attract a healthy person into my life. I needed to feel confident that I wanted a man to enhance my life not complete me, so my struggle was to feel complete first before allowing myself to date. When you begin to establish self love you begin to have self confidence. When you have self confidence you are much more aware of the people around you and your ability to make better choices, not only in dating but also in friendships. You begin to make healthier decisions because you are relying on your inner confidence by paying attention to inner feelings that come up while you are around other people. I believe it is all based on energy, if I am positive in my thinking my energy is higher and I will attract healthy, positive people in to my life. If I believe I am worthy of love then love will find me, if I believe I don’t deserve love then I won’t. I see the same thing working with friendship and business relationships, by believing they exist and that I deserve them I begin attracting healthy minded people into my life.

My decision to not date for a while was a healthy one, two years ago I made a list with all of the things I wanted in a man, I made it so detailed in fact that I had to laugh with the thought of how such a person could actually exist. It seemed as though I was being so picky that no one could have all those characteristics in real life, still I had read somewhere to do the exercise because it worked…so I did. I started to feel a shift in my thoughts several months ago when I realized that by saying to others out loud I did not want to date I was not being true to what I felt inside. The truth was that I did not care to date just anyone I wanted to meet the right one for me and I didn’t want to have to weed through men to find that one. I had so much fear of getting hurt there was no way I would attract someone into my life because I was putting negative energy out unknowingly. I believe when we are struggling with these sort of subconscious issues we put out mixed signals with our talking, tone of voice and body language. I want to be in a committed relationship and I was scared to admit my actual fear was if I found someone I was crazy about and told the world, I would be embarrassed that I exposed myself if the relationship fell apart. I didn’t want people to see my vulnerable side and I would then have to admit I was wrong. I was living in this fear and it was not even a reality. I was self projecting without even knowing it and I was not giving myself a chance of what if, because I was already focused on the negative. By saying I did not want to date I was hiding and hiding makes it easy to look good but by hiding you can not be found. We can not find the right person without allowing ourselves to look, to make mistakes and to try again. We must learn to trust not only others but ourselves. I had finally become very comfortable with my singleness and with allowing myself the possibility of what might be out there. Around the time I was having these thoughts I noticed something very interesting about myself…I had unknowingly started watching a lot of romantic comedies. The reason this is interesting is that for over a year I did not want to see anything showing love, intimacy or couples because it would bring up my inner loneliness and my fear that I would never find the right guy. In reality it had nothing to do with anyone else, I just lacked self confidence and my “Self Talk” needed to change. I needed to believe there was someone out there for me and feel it was true rather than believe no such man existed. It made me sad to see others in love because I wanted to experience that so badly but deep down I had doubts that I deserved love because I lacked the confidence to admit I was good enough or that it existed. I coped by telling everyone I didn’t want a relationship and that I loved being single. I knew that I needed the time to work on myself, on my thinking and to become a healthier individual but I was also putting a very negative message out to keep my heart safe. When you have the ability to become aware of your negative self conscious “Talk”, just that awareness can begin shifting your thoughts. I then noticed I had all of a sudden started watching movies about love and I no longer felt lonely, instead I felt happy because I felt there was a possibility that love would come into my life because I knew I was living in a better mind set. I felt an inner confidence focusing on the excitement of being in a relationship rather than the negative feeling of believing the right man was not out there for me. I started to believe that wonderful feeling of sharing my life with a partner again would someday exist. I smiled thinking of what that would feel like and what the possibility of love could bring into my life. I know this all may sound silly but I really do feel it is all on the way I have to trust it will happen as it should and just focus on feeling good no matter what.

Another thing that showed me a shift in my thinking was the birth of ReTune Nashville. For years I have asked for and prayed that something would come into my life that would allow me to give back, not just a financial give but a giving of myself to others with out expecting anything in return. ReTune was an accident brought on by a silly idea originating from an unplanned, unfortunate event…a flood. The inner fulfillment this project has brought to me so far is beyond words and we are not even half way to achieving our mission. It has only strengthened my belief in prayer and in positive thinking, we don’t always get what we want right away or when we think we need it. Sometimes someone else knows better when things are supposed to come into being, we just have to believe it is on the way and that it is happening exactly as it should.

What I am attempting to share here is that we need to really pay attention to what we are putting out there, what are we subconsciously sharing with the world? We need to pay attention to our thoughts, what we say and our response to sensitive issues. We often operate in auto pilot repeating ideas and thoughts that may not be as positive as we think. We may be unconsciously putting negative ideas out there because it has over time become a mechanism to protect our hearts from being hurt. We may be playing it safe without even knowing it by operating from fear of what happened in the past. If we open our hearts, take chances and experience the possibility of wonderful things we allow ourselves to experience life not just live it. If we are playing it safe for fear of making a wrong decision or getting our heart broke chances are we are not really living our full potential. If we are experiencing happiness our energy is higher and better things are more likely to come our way and to continue.

I want to live from this point on as if it were my last day on earth. I want to create more, give more, share more and love deeper than I have ever done in my past. The worst thing that can happen is I could fall down a few times but I still have the strength to get up and keep trying so there is absolutely no excuse for my not creating an extraordinary life for myself, even now at 45.

How about you, what are you saying to yourself that could be turned around in a way to make you feel stronger and happier. Pay attention to things that don’t feel good and become aware of what your self conscious mind is saying. Be honest with yourself and with others in a positive way and I can assure you that your life will become a happier place. Give it a try and let me know what you find out! Sending love out to all of you, now it is your turn to spread the word and make a difference!

So much has happened lately, the emotions brought on by the flood, seeing people hurt and rebuild, watching people join together and the strange birth from out of no where of ReTune Nashville into my life.  I have had many moments of self reflection and with each moment I keep thinking of the gift of life and the road that led me here.  For me there is a newly found happiness of just being, I am happy 95% of the time with an occasional bad mood but I realize I am in charge of my mood so it has become easier to react to things based on how I want to feel.  Feeling good happens when I am in a good mood therefore I choose to be in a good mood no matter what.

For some reason the same two questions continue popping up in my mind. Who am I?  What is my purpose?  After all this time it is these two questions that never seem go away completely.  Even when I feel I have found myself, discovered a secret to life and maybe even stumbled upon my purpose. There will be a point in time where these questions will resurface because life is continuous, always moving in a forward direction even when I don’t feel that it is.  I thought mine was on hold the past 9 years but looking in the mirror at the lines slowly collecting around my eyes I am reminded that time is marching on.

So my story is clear, it is all the things I have done, places I have been, people who have filtered through my life in various ways over time and how I have allowed all of my choices to lead my life to where I am right now.  But who I am?  I am what I think I am and I do believe that sometimes it is not what others see.  So often we filter in opinions of our self based on a false meaning from what someone said or how we interpreted what someone said.  Who we are is up to us, we have a choice in how we see ourselves and we have a choice in what we choose to believe.

Who am I?  I do know that this is and will continue to change until the day I die because time will not stop as long as I am breathing. I am a woman who loves her family.  They are and will always be the most important part of me (even if Mom thought it was cute to dress me as a skunk for halloween).  I am a very open minded person yet at times I feel I am somehow trapped by my conservative upbringing.  Yes I marvel over those who can ink up their bodies in grande displays, not because they have the balls to do it but because they have the courage to be who they believe they are no matter how others look at them.  I am a woman who feels deeply and wants to give of myself more now than I have ever wanted in my past.  I know I am intelligent although at times I feel really dumb at certain things.  I feel attractive at times but I continue to question my identity with hopes of one day secretly winning a makeover and rediscovering a diamond that I always knew was there I just had no idea how to make it shine.  I am always trying to find ways to challenge my mind and to make money through what I love but I also have found a new joy in being quiet and living simple.  I love to talk when I am around those I know but when I am around strangers I am shy and reserved.  I feel healthy, I enjoy my work outs most every day, I feel better when I eat better and I love my dog.  I have, for the first time in my life become completely content with being single and although I would love to be asked out on occasion by someone I am attracted to I feel no panic in my lack of men or my not being in a relationship.  I believe when it is time it will happen and that it is all happening exactly as it should.  I am for the first time in my life living with no worry of where my career or time will take me, I have goals and dreams but I am ok with how things fall into place because I believe that there is something bigger guiding me in the right direction.  I trust my forward path will be as it should because I am healthier in my thinking, I am spiritual and I know I am being guided.  I have embraced self love in ways I never thought I could and I believe it has given me not only confidence but also restored happiness to my life that was missing for a very long time.  Most of all I have found an enormous amount of love with in me and it makes me want to pass it on knowing how powerful that is and how good it feels.

Perhaps I am just a bunch of words, and what if I am, what if to me words are just a way for me to cope and to grow.  What if words are also my secret gift to others without even knowing it.  Often as I am writing I imagine myself as the narrator of a movie, a simple story of an average person living an average life, but it is how the words are expressed that matters, that is also what makes the story stand on its own.  Words have the potential to make a story unfold but they also have the ability to make you feel the story.  The truth is my story really doesn’t matter to you.  Who am I?  Who are you?  What is your story?  Can you tell me in a way that will make me feel, can you tell your love ones things in ways that make them feel, what is it that they are feeling from your story.  Is it a good story, if not how can it be?  Maybe we would all be in a better place, perhaps a happier place if we thought about our story and spoke it in a way where people not only felt it but it brought a smile.  You are your story so start creating, the past is the past it doesn’t carry meaning unless you allow it to.  Think about it….I am!

Tonight was a huge reminder that I am who I am.  I believe that the core of our being is planted when we are very young.  No matter what happens along the way, that embedded core transforms into personality traits which in turn leads to our purpose and our being.  I believe that what we experience at a very young age and how we choose to interpret it creates who we will become.  I think that depending on the early experience (between the age of two to maybe ten) we place meaning on what happens, and then we continue to experience that throughout life based on the meaning we gave the experience.

Tonight was my WMBA (Woman’s Music Business Association) annual cocktail party and yearly award ceremony at the Acorn in Nashville.  As always I went alone, sat at a table alone the first 30 minutes as we all ate and after a glass of wine I was relaxed enough to mingle.  As a child I would always sit in the back corner of the room as I did tonight, my reason for this is so that I won’t draw attention to myself (as if no one wonders why the chick in the back of the room is sitting alone).  Throughout life I never enjoyed being in front of people, never enjoyed being the center of attention, never wanted to be called upon in class and I never wanted to win anything because I hated the thought of being in front of a crowd.  I believe it stems from my story (in earlier blog post) with kids making fun of me because of my speech impediment and I do realize at 45 that this is all self inflicted.

As I sat there tonight another trait from my childhood resurfaced, that of not paying attention.  I have always had a difficult time staying focused and using my time wisely.  These days it is referenced to as ADD and although I will not allow myself to be tested or to accept that title I do believe there is some truth that I may have a small percentage of this behavior.  I recently found an early report card (image attached) that stated that I needed improvement in those areas and it serves as a reminder that those issues have carried through to today some 36 years later.  I find it interesting those report card notes from my early years are still a part of who I am today.

As the award show started I quickly lost attention and struggled to stay focused on what was being said.  My friend Dina sent a text, she is leaving in the morning from New Orleans and wanted to know if I was interested in splitting a sack of raw oysters upon her return.  Being from Florida I couldn’t resist the temptation and as I was responding to her text quietly in the back of the room my name came across the loud speaker.  Like a deer in the headlights I looked up to see the whole room staring at me and clapping their hands.  In that moment fear gripped my entire body, somehow I was able to walk to the front of the room, not knowing why exactly but realizing I had won some award.  The microphone was handed to me and I was asked to speak…crickets.  I had no idea what I was just awarded nor did I have a clue what to say, so, as I have learned with age the best path to take is honesty.  I admitted that I was not paying attention, I was texting for oysters, showed the crowd gratitude for the award and nervously in my moment of embarrassment (auto pilot kicked in) I rambled off some story from my childhood and walked away ashamed.

With age I have come to realize that emotions pass very quickly when you don’t allow yourself to hold on to them.  My embarrassment subsided and later I was approached with congratulations and only wished I knew what for, the award was titled “Extra Mile Award”.  I have not won an award in many, many years so I am very honored to have won.  The WMBA is a wonderful organization and I feel privileged to be a part of it.  Although I do not feel I have done anything to earn an award I must have done something because I was voted in and it is with great honor.

Tonight, I learned a big lesson, texting is not only bad to do while driving but it is also bad to do at an award show.  I am glad that I was able to bring some laughter to everyone in the room tonight and I think with my new “Extra Mile Award” title I will go the extra mile and say even if some of my not so desirable traits are still with me from my childhood, I will use them in ways that bring laughter to others!  Yes my humiliation for some reason always brings laughter and I am ok with that because that brings me joy.  Sending love until next time…

I had the chance to spend some time with friends celebrating the arrival of spring but I opted to spend some alone time reflecting, enjoying time with the big white pink eared dog and loving the beautiful weather.  I began to think about my past life and the defining life moments that have occurred that have molded me into who I am.  I thought it might be therapeutic to write the list in order to feel the full release and to define each individually.

The older I get the more I notice that I feel others sadness when dealing with the embarrassment of public humility.  It is the biggest reason I tend to watch less tv, especially the news.  It seems that no matter how thick our skin is there are times that something said can affect us in a negative and hurtful way.  We are often too busy worrying about what others think about us or we are passing judgment about others and we forget we all originated from the same cloth.  Tiger Woods is a perfect example, though I do not agree with his actions I believe the media has taken it too far, let the man deal with his bad choices on his own and in private.  It amazes me and saddens me that our society gets so much pleasure in others pain and humility.

In my younger-past life I was very sensitive to others opinions, to the stares of those who seemed to look down on me and to those who did not like me no matter how hard I tried to make them think differently.  I worked hard to be accepted and wanted everyone to love me.  I would sometimes do things I did not want or agree with for acceptance.  Thank God I am still here to talk about them because some of the things I did in my teens could have taken my life had the circumstances been different in even a split second of the moment.

I struggled in elementary school with a speech impediment that made me different, it made other kids talk down to me and it hurt.  While they were out playing kick ball, laughing and having fun I was in a classroom trying to learn how to talk like everyone else.  As I grew older those internal feelings grew and I allowed them to manifest into something I believed not something that truly was.  I never felt I was good enough, I never felt pretty enough and I allowed my thoughts to take over my choices by settling.  I stayed in relationships that offered reinforcement on my belief through manipulation because I thought I deserved less.  I never trusted because in my mind everyone was planning to hurt me, I was outwardly doing everything I could to be accepted but privately I was sad and very alone.  I believed that loving yourself meant that you were selfish and self centered and I had become a victim in my own thinking, I was living my story…one that I myself created in my own mind.  The person here before you now is very different from that person, although at times some of those old thoughts may resurface I am always aware and I am able to find my true self, that self that I know I love.

For me something happened…something shifted somewhere around the time I entered my forties.  Perhaps it was the mere fact that I finally began the battle of wanting to love myself and except, honor and be grateful for what I had, what I was and who I am.  I think the real factor was that I was truly tired of the struggle, of the sadness and I wanted to figure out how to be happy.  Wouldn’t it be great if we all could find that early in life so that discovering the truth self-love creates for us could be experienced by all.  Imagine how much more happiness we could have encountered in our lives if this were the case, now imaging how much more happiness your children could have if you teach these things to them now.

The idea for this post came to mind when I remembered an episode that happened on the playground in 1st grade way back when I was struggling with my speech impediment and my feeling of not fitting in.  I was friends with an african american girl named Karen and we would often take turns throwing the basketball after school on the basketball courts.  It is hard to believe that where I grew up there were practically no african american people who lived or went to school with me and there were no other ethnic kids in our school.  Even today I hate that we have to use titles to represent the color of skin (or sexual preference) to define a person who is not a straight caucasian.  On this particular day as we walked to the basketball court two boys started saying awful, judgemental things to Karen because of her color.  It was obvious she was used to being talked down to in that way and she began to walk away as the boy’s continued with their rudeness.  For whatever reason and without even thinking about my actions I stood next to her with a basketball planted between my arm and resting on my hip full of attitude and confidence as I told the boys we were staying and were playing whether they wanted us to or not.  Through her humility on that day in that instant I saw a faint smile and she stayed there with me regardless of the fear she was feeling.  At the time I did not realize what an impact that must of made on her but she stayed my friend until we moved on to different schools.  I never saw her as a color but as a girl that I liked to hang out with and I have to thank my mother for those morals because she always told me that I should always treat others as I would want to be treated because in Gods eyes we are all the same.

Most of my life I allowed myself to experience humility and felt it was what I deserved, boy did I have that all wrong and now I realize it was something I made up in my own mind.  I believe that this is the reason I have always felt drawn to those who are different, to those who might be considered strange, damaged or less fortunate…perhaps it is the reason I want so badly to give something back and to make others feel good about themselves.

In my quest the greatest lesson I have learned is that you can’t make everyone love you no matter how hard you try but you can make your thoughts about what people think or say mean NOTHING….it is all how you think and what you allow yourself to believe.  Most of the time we have it all wrong in believing that someone else is even thinking about us.  Insecurity runs rampant when we allow it to but we always have the choice to love ourselves enough for it not to matter.  This is what I choose, this is who I have become and my hope is that if I can touch even just one person out there in a way that changes their self-thought in a positive way I have made some sort of difference.  As always I am sending love to all because love is the truth of why we are here.  The greatest thing you can do in life is to give love and compassion so pass it on….

This year I want you all to join me in celebrating February as the “LOVE” month.  No I have not regressed with age to the likes of a hippie although I have had someone call me a hippie chic recently.  Generally those who are in relationships feel the love during this month due to Valentines Day but I think the whole month (whether you are in love or not) should be celebrated with love.  I believe every month it should be celebrated but for now lets just focus on February!

This new place I have found in life revolves around being grateful for what I have, not allowing myself to focus on what I don’t and giving something back.  I have grown to understand the importance of self-love and now realize that having that allows me to give more love outside of myself.  Maybe I have watched too many romantic movies lately or maybe  I have focused too much on the wisdom of Dr. Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay.  The point is that something has shifted inside of me in the past year and I have become so full of love and gratitude that I want to share it and make it contagious.  The more I give out the more it comes back to me and the more I smile.

Let me start with the things I love on an average day in the life of me….

I love my daily 7:20 AM call from Mom in Florida, just hearing her voice, the fact she wonders what I have planned and her saying to me “I love you” just before she hangs up.  I love the kisses I get from my 100lb, 1 year old big pink eared dog just before he rings the bell hanging on the back door to go out for his morning poo.  I love the painful hour of exercise I do everyday to get my day started and how it makes me feel, how it gives me time to think, clear my head, get focused and to breath.  I love the view I see from my treehouse on the hill looking out my kitchen window each and every morning as I make my morning coffee or tea, it makes me smile every single day.  I love that I have been fortunate enough to spend every day of my adult life thus far taking pictures, creating art and doing what makes my heart sing.  I love the checking in of my friends through out the day weather on FB, by text or by phone and I am so grateful for all those who acknowledge me, I have the greatest friends in the world.  I love Nashville and my home, the warmth it brings me and the fact that I survived the journey that brought me here.  I love that I have healed from that journey, that I have found inner happiness and that I smile more because of it.  As I end each day I love the comfort of my bed, the softness of my cotton sheets, the twinkle of the lights in the distance that I see from my bedroom window as I lay my head down to sleep. I love that I am healthy, alive and feel completely connected to something much bigger than I am (who I call God).

I believe love is the single most important thing we have yet we seldom see it because we get so caught up in the rush of everyday life.  If you could imagine for a moment that it was felt by all and replaced feelings of hate, judgement, arrogance and racism (among many others)…how do you think our world would look as opposed to the way it looks right now?  I could speak of love far longer than you might care to read so I will end by saying I love that I was given the gift of creativity, I believe I am good at it and that I am finding ways to use it to give back.  Life reflects how we think, love is what we all need, and I believe is what we were put here to do.  No matter how busy you are, how little money you have or how bad you may think your life is, today lets all begin to celebrate the month of “LOVE” and see what comes back.  What are the things that YOU LOVE in the average day of YOU?  Are you grateful?  Do you show your love to others?  This month give LOVE openly, and see where it takes you.  Love is a gift to us all, it is meant to be shared…you have no excuse not to love because it is free!

2010 has arrived and so many of us have prepared the usual list of New Years resolutions.  I have never been much for resolutions but I do set goals each year in both my personal and professional life by reflecting on my past year and deciding what changes I want to happen in order to be a happier person.  Each year my first priority always seems to start with my eating habits because diets and challenges all seem to be temporary.  Learning more about nutrition, eating fresh -not processed foods and eating smaller portions is a constant goal.  At 40 something my metabolism is not as it used to be and it is much more challenging to keep my body healthy.  I am excited about finding new ways of staying healthy, I prefer referring to it as “Staying Healthy” rather than wanting to be thin.

When I awoke this morning I though I would make a list of some of the things I have discovered in my life up to this point…here is what I came up with:

*As a woman-feeling healthy, eating right and steady exercise does wonders for self esteem!

*My biggest challenge in life is patience, if I can slow down and enjoy the ride it always has a better outcome.

*Being single can really, really be fun!

*I have no idea how to flirt, actually I stink at it because I was told that by a guy recently.  I need to work on this one.

*Winter sunrises and sun-set are absolutely beautiful!

*I have no idea how to cut wings and pizza out of my diet…or at least to replace them with a healthy alternative.  These two foods are always the first thing that come to mind when I want something really bad!

*The person who invented the chocolate chip cookie was a personal trainer who’s pleasure was seeing the pain of lunges in the eyes of the cookie eater.

*The world needs more love…in every city, state and country, I always feel a bit like a hippie from the 60′s saying that out loud but I do believe it is the most important and underachieved thing in most of our lives.  It is also the one thing that makes us feel the best at any given time when we truly feel it in our hearts.

*I have learned that with age my heart continues to soften and giving something back is becoming more and more important to me.

*That Mr. Deisel is really Mr. Barker and is continuously trying to communicate with his ancestors far away….God help my neighbors, I am working on this issue!

*If you love yourself you have self-confidence, if you have self-confidence you make healthy choices, making healthier choices makes you happier and your life becomes more fulfilling.

*You can not make everyone who comes into your life happy merely by being nice, that some people will always place blame, always be the victim and no matter what you say or do nothing will change their outlook.  With this I have also learned that you must let these people go and pray that they find love within to fix what they believe they don’t have.

*I may not know a thing about men after all!  Over and over we are told that they are very simple creatures of habit….define simple please!

*Life is exactly what we create, creation happens with the way we think. There is no one else to blame in regards to what our lives look like so we need to make our thoughts align with what we want and be accountable.

*I have learned that I have a world of things to be grateful for and I am so, so fortunate for all that I have.

*I have come to realize that I may not have ever really been in love after all.  The thought occurred to me recently while talking to a friend about love and questioning the circumstances of my past relationships.  Do I get so caught up in the excitement of someone showing me attention that I confuse the intimacy and a somewhat codependent time of being together as love.  I am not sure, I have never thought of it in this particular way before.  It is something I am seriously looking at…

*The movie “The Sound of music”? is my all time favorite, and the best love story ever!

*Every human being on this earth wants to be in love and have a partner no matter what they say, it is the most primal part of being human.  What I don’t understand is why is it not occurring more often and why when we all want it, is it so complex and hard to find?

*Coffee doesn’t taste good to me with out all the sugar, it is the one thing that I can’t make healthier and taste good at the same time!

*Working out everyday really helps me to relieve stress and I am learning to love the process more and more.

*I still after 8 years in Nashville hate cold weather…at least when it gets under 40 degrees.

*I love who I am…it has taken 44 years to be able to say it but finally I do, and I look forward to creating more for myself that I will love in the future.

*I believe my purpose here is to continue to find ways to inspire others, my desire is to help, give and continue to discover ways of doing this…it truly brings me happiness.

*Laughter is the one thing that instantly makes us feel good and we all need so much more of it!

I’ve never needed New Years for incentive to change something I needed to change. As I grow older life has become a time of discovery and I have learned to look inside for change rather than having to go outside of myself for incentive.  While doing all of this internal work I have become much happier, I laugh more and I  worry less.  Some goals continue to challenge me, I am still working on increasing my income through my passion, loosing that junk in the trunk and I still have the desire to someday be in a committed relationship. I know that with the work I am doing on ME those things are on the way. The most important thing right know is to enjoy the process, take each day moment by moment and be grateful for all that I have because I know I have a lot!  Sending love out to all of you for the new year…thank you for reading (and please leave a comment if you feel the desire)!

I finally realize that we get what we give, no matter what- if we allow ourselves to love everyone, to give to others, to live without expectation and to believe that everything is perfect no matter what the outcome life becomes magically abundant. If you don’t believe it is possible it never will be, if you know anything is possible it all will be and if you are sitting on the fence what do you have to lose…

Something has shifted…it is too soon to discuss this in detail but it is amazing when my mind wonders to this place in the moment which is most every moment, maybe every 7 seconds.  I made a list twice over the past year and a half filled with things I was hoping to have come into my life.  It was detailed, it was for the purpose of putting the list into action never knowing if I would at a later date be able to mark down and see the list getting smaller.  These things make my heart flutter, they bring love into my world, make me laugh and fill a void that has been empty for so long.  This year of searching has opened up new things for me, new possibilities, new opportunities and my heart is full of love and admiration-life is really good.

This year my family has experienced some difficult times and a death, this month I have experienced my Dad’s new life of marriage and this week my family has experienced a new life come into the world.  It fascinates me that in a moment your world can change so drastically for the worst and for the better.  It reminds me that we have so little time and yet so many of us waste it on the wrong things.  I have let go of my past, I have let go of judgment and I am moving forward but with the understanding that TODAY is most important.  I have found that the more grateful and loving I am the more love and gratitude comes back into my life.  Things are not perfect, I could use more work, I need to lose those extra pounds and wish I had the time and money to experience life to a higher degree.  With that my list of things that make me happy is far greater and that is how I know I am finally on the right path in this short life.  I realize that time will move forward and there will be low points but they are always followed by high ones if I choose to see with open eyes and a positive mind.  I am grateful for all that I have and for those who are in my life.

I cant change the world but I can pass on love and I am hoping in all that you are struggling with you will take a moment and really look hard at all the wonderful things you DO have.  Realize that change for the better happens by taking baby steps.  One by one each of us can make a difference by simply loving, being grateful and passing it on so now its your turn, tag your it!

Today my best friend posted a blog about love (http://www.amyvenezia.com/2009/09/23/last-night-facebook-taught-me-about-love-and-peace/).  What is strange is that the idea came to her after a facebook post went sour for her yesterday.  Some people got snippy because they were associated with the thread and they decided they didn’t want to receive the emails from the thread anymore.  Strange that a month or so ago I started some art pieces centered around the word love.  What is also weird to me is I planned on writing about love yesterday but went into a different place that was more introspective when posting.  So today I too will write about love but from the initial thought I had a few days ago…

Do you say “I love you” to those you feel you have love for?  If you are in a relationship or talking to a parent, your child or a sibling those words might come easy but what about the other people in your life who have great meaning to you but are not in that realm?  I have never had a hard time saying those words to my sister, my mom, my nephew, my dad or to a man I might have been with whom I loved.  But to say it to a girlfriend or a guy friend had never crossed my mind.  The feeling is there for those other special people but why does it seem more difficult to say those words to them?  If you were lying on your death bed and your best friends were there at your side I bet those words would come out easily!  This has been on my mind a lot because my best friend Amy V. is the one who spoke those words to me first many months ago and I have since pondered the lasting effects they have carried in not only my heart but in my thoughts toward those other important people in my life.  I have struggled first with just replying back to her, it is coming easier but now I am thinking how do I take this and spread the goodness.  After all if we all spoke how we felt with each other honestly, if we all said those words, wouldn’t it feel better knowing they knew just in case something happened and tomorrow you or they were no longer here.  And then there is the fact that just the act of speaking those words make you feel better, I believe we are here to love so why not say it?

Love is the primary force of our existence, without love there is no happiness.  When you love your family, your job, your life or any other thing it brings you joy and you are happy.  When others love you it brings you joy, makes you feel wanted, makes you feel connected.  The saddest part of this equation is knowing that there are people out there who can’t even say “I love you” to any one in their lives.  I believe this is usually passed down through the generations and they may not have ever felt love because they never received it. So here I am today in love.  Just loving everyone and sending love to all of you, sort of like the “Hug” guy from several years back.  I love my family, my friends, my home, my Deisel and my life.  I love people….all people and that includes you…with more love in this world life has to be better don’t you think?  Take the time right now to tell someone you love them, not just those who are easy to say it to but say it to someone who might be surprised.  Do that and I bet you will feel a little flutter you didn’t know was possible right there in the center of your chest…