It’s Christmastime again and everyone is bustling with lots of holiday plans. It’s possibly the busiest time of the year for all of us. The parties, the shopping, the family functions, the road trips, the decorations: you begin to wonder if you’ll get it all done!
With all this busy-ness it’s easy to forget what really matters. That’s why it’s so important to not forget to open the one gift that could make your holiday season (and every other season) worthwhile.
There are a few things that can hold us back from living the life we want. And none are more hindering than the thoughts we allow to limit the actions we take. The worst part about these thoughts is that they’re lies! They create inner conflicts that keep us from the life we desire and convince us that we don’t deserve better.
In my experience as a life coach over the years nothing can create a bigger breakthrough in someone’s life than the identification and replacement of these inner conflicts. In my own life, that has certainly been the case. Because I want you to be limitless in your pursuit of the future that fulfills you, let’s take the lid off.
The lie you believe that keeps you settling for less than you deserve is at the core of every failure and hesitation in your life. It showed itself as a truth when you were young and needs to be exposed as false. Your future depends on it.
It’s that time of year again. The time when we all naturally realize that we’re about to start yet another year and we’re asking ourselves, “Did I accomplish what I wanted to do this year?”
My coach just asked me this question last week and I had the good pleasure of reviewing my intentions for 2014 that I had written in January and celebrating the fact that I had achieved almost every single one. How cool is that?! It was so exhilarating to know that what I intended to do, I actually accomplished (and even more!).
For many of us, though, that question isn’t going to be answered well. Why? Because we didn’t really know what we wanted in the first place! We didn’t make a plan. We didn’t sit down and really allow ourselves the opportunity to envision the future we desired. We didn’t write down anything that we wanted to achieve, so we left it up to the universe to decide for us what our year would look like.
Sure, we wanted changes when this year started. We wanted to become more healthy, more happy, have more fun, make more money, be debt free, find our partner, make our marriage better, finally get the job that makes us smile, upgrade our living situation, get that new car, start that business, and go to that exotic location for vacation – but now we’re facing the reality that we didn’t do those things. To want change is never enough.
So, do you want your year ahead to be different? If so, then listen up! Because there’s only one reason why 2015 won’t be any different and there’s a radically simple solution to make sure that you make this your best year yet.
As someone who was born, raised and still currently resides in St. Louis, MO, I’ve been watching the scenes in Ferguson (a suburb of St. Louis County) unfold these past few days with both heartache and outrage. Heartache for the people whose dreams have been affected by the violence in the streets and outrage for the people whose dreams have been affected by the verdict on Monday night.
From the beginning, when this case presented itself on local and then national television screens and social media feeds, it was never just about the events that led to the death of Michael Brown at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson. This case was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Funny phrase, that is. If it were to literally come true, can you imagine what might take place if you were the camel’s caretaker? The camel collapses, and you start retracing your steps into the immediate past to reveal what you think is the cause of the problem. You would form an opinion based on your look into the past about what it was that made the camel collapse. You might say to yourself, “Next time, I won’t put that last straw on the camel’s back.”
But then you’d be missing the point entirely, wouldn’t you? It wasn’t the last straw that broke the camel’s back. It was the collective amount of weight you required the camel to carry for a long period of time that made it appear as though the camel collapsed under the final added weight of that tiny straw. It wasn’t the tiny moment in time that produced the final outcome, it was the collective moments of time that added up to produce the broken camel. The straw was the cause, but the weight over time was the source.
And that, my friends, is why we are collectively missing the point when it comes to Ferguson. We are pointing our fingers at the shooting of Michael Brown (the cause) while failing to see the history of objectification and marginalization that preceded this event (the source). And if we want to see any real change take place from this moment of crisis, then we absolutely must look at the real sources of the problems and not just at the immediate causes.
President John F. Kennedy, in his convocation of the United Negro College Fund in Indianpolis, IN on April 12, 1959 said, “When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
So, let’s explore the dangerous opportunity in front of us by looking at 3 huge sources of the Ferguson response and how we can help things move in the forward direction that we all desire.
This weekend, we celebrate Mother’s Day by honoring the women in our lives that function as our moms.
Moms help us in so many practical and spiritual ways to become our best and guide us on our journey. They sacrifice their needs to help meet ours. They help us gain perspective when we need it most. They give tirelessly to make our homes places of refuge and peace even when they’re feeling exhausted and drained. Moms provided our first embrace and are the last people on the planet that we want to let go of.
Moms are awesome! So, in honor of the women in our lives that we have the privilege of calling “mom,” here are 3 huge reasons moms rock.