The only thing you can't have in life is.........

....something for nothing". You must pay the price for every action - good or bad. The key is to have faith in YOU and not blame outside entities, your past, heredity, family, etc, for all the bad turns that your life has taken. It is very easy to blame others or to find excuses as to why you haven't succeeded, happiness has eluded you, or wealth avoids you among other things.

The answer is faith; not the empty rhetoric taught by most religions during their weekly sermons. What happens after you leave the "ceremony?" Faith goes out the window. Time to face the harsh realities of life and get onboard the miserable train for another 6 day trip until the following Sunday when you will see a sliver of hope in front of you......a vicious cycle indeed! It is like being inside an elevator and one starts pressing the up and down buttons at the same time. It is not going anywhere. Your faith works the same way. One day you proclaim that He is in charge of your destiny and you allow Him to take the reigns. The next day you forget about Him and start finding excuses for all of your problems.....up and down again. A divided mind can't move forward!

Imagine if a farmer starts planting seeds early in the morning and by mid day he decides the ground is not fertile enough. He goes back to the field and removes all the seeds. He will be collecting unemployment soon thereafter and the family farm will go up in smoke.

All the answers lie within you. You have the solution(s) to all your problems. All you need to do is quietly ask Him to show you the path, to open the door, to bring the person who will guide you, to plant the idea in your mind.

Afterwards, let it go! Believe in yourself and the action that you have just taken. Close your eyes and imagine the results. The moment you ask for it, invisible forces get to work just for you.......go for it!

Become the sculptor of your own life.

I once read that Michelangelo would stand in front of The David and yell "come out" as he chiseled away for hours at the stone. He could see the end result in his mind. The David was a living thing that was hiding inside the marble stone.

....so here it is my philosophy with this sculpting thing. A rock, stone, pebble, or what seems like a boulder at times is given to us when we are born. The only condition for its acceptance is that we mold it whichever way we want, but mold it we MUST! However, it is alright if we decide not to work on it at all but the consequence of such act is that it will get heavier, bigger, and more cumbersome to carry the rest of our lives.

Challenges that we encounter each and every day are absorbed by this "rock" and as we move forward in life it can get bigger and heavier. We can also add to its volume by the amount of material things we acquire that require more and more attention and effort to maintain.

Shakespeare once said that "brevity is the soul of wit." Why not be brief to the challenges that we bring upon ourselves or the things we MUST acquire to make us HAPPY?

Don't take too many things to heart and don't take yourself too seriously.

Food for thought!

Anna Mary Robertson, best known as Grandma Moses, loved to embroider, but as she aged, she developed arthritis, which made embroidery too painful. Her sister suggested painting instead, so Robertson, seventy-five, took up something new. She began to paint the things she knew , farm and country scenes.

The results were utterly original and surprisingly good for a late-starting amateur. Her earliest works were shown and sold at a nearby drugstore and general store in Hoosick Falls, NY. One fateful day, New York engineer and art collector Louis Caldor happened by and purchased the whole lot on display.

Caldor was so taken with Robertson's art that he went another step and began promoting her works to collectors and galleries. Largely through Caldor's efforts, Robertson's work became famous. Her paintings were hung at the Museum of Modern Art in NY in 1939, and she held her first solo exhibition in New York a year later. She was eighty years young.

Even greater acclaim followed. She had many one-woman shows across Europe and North America. In her nineties, her paintings attracted attention all over the world. Her simple scenes of everyday life - people socializing, harvesting, participating in markets and fairs, and engaging in outdoor activities like ice-skating - still captivate wide audiences.

Her most notable works include The Thanksgiving Turkey (1943), and Over the River to Grandma's House (1944), fitting for the one who was to become known around the world simply as Grandma Moses.

She wrote a lively autobiography at age ninety-two, My Life's History. Grandma Moses lived to 101, no doubt propelled to that milestone by her important work.

From the time arthritis forced her to stop embroidering to when she completed her first artworks, only three years had passed. She said if she hadn't taken up painting, she would have raised chickens. (Her fans are glad she chose the former). The plainspoken original said simply that life is what we make it.

Excerpt from Extraordinary Comebacks by John A. Sarkett, Sourcebooks, Inc 2007

Solitude

It is not only the technological advances that have marked the beginning of this millennium, but relationships are going thru profound transformations with regards to love and romance.

Most people today are searching for a relationship that is compatible with modern times. A relationship where individuality, happiness, mutual respect, and the pleasure of "being together" can co-exist, and not one where there is a dependence on the other person for our well being or misfortunes.

The romantic idea that one person is the remedy for our happiness will slowly disappear in this century.

Romantic love is based on the premise that we are a "portion of some whole section" and need to find the other half to feel complete.

Many times there is a detachment from our own personalities that historically has affected women more than men. They abandon their personality traits to amalgamate the masculine design or desire.

The theory of "opposites attract" is also rooted in the same romantic love concept - the other person has to compliment what I lack. If I am docile, she must be aggressive, and so on and so forth.

In this 21st century, the key word is association and not fusion.

We are changing the love of necessity for one of desire. "I enjoy and desire his company but I don't need it as something indispensable."

More and more people are losing the fear of being alone, particularly with new technologies and changes in our society that requires more individuality.

Man is an animal who is constantly changing the world. As a result, he needs to be in a continuous state of "recycling" to adapt himself to the world he has created.

The era of individuality has arrived. It has nothing to do with being selfish. A selfish person lacks his own energy and feeds himself off the energy of others - financially or morally.

A new form of love has a new significance in that brings together two whole parts and not the union of two parts. The key word is "whole." However, to reach this level one must lead with his individuality.

A person who is not afraid of being alone is more prepared to deliver true affection in any relationship.

Solitude is not negative or shameful. On the contrary, it is worthy of respect.

The best relationships are similar to being alone - any kind of demand becomes secondary and there is mutual growth.

Everyone should experience solitude once in a while in order to establish an internal dialogue and discover their inner strength.

Solitude allows the individual to understand the harmony and inner peace that can only be found within and not from others.

As a result, the person becomes less critical of others and respects their behavior.

The love among two "whole" people is the healthiest type of affection. It provides the pleasure of each others company, respect for the loved one, and a haven for common growth.

Dr. Flavio Gikovate

Cut the tie that bind us

On Friday night, I was talking to a friend about different things including her recent separation and divorce. We were discussing how one can attract positive and negative energies from others thru the thought process. We act as magnets giving and receiving the thoughts from others when we regularly bring them about in conversation, complaints, or fond memories.

For example, we both know a woman (lets call her Maria) whose sister is envious of her every which way. Maria has to maintain a balance between been friendly toward her sister and not trusting her completely. Maria is a very spiritual person and is constantly sending her sister love and forgiveness with her thoughts. At the same time, Maria complaints about her sister and what a mean rotten SOB she is. The good thoughts become useless if one continually speaks about the other person's misdeeds, experiences, actions, or merely the past. Moreover, if our intention is to eradicate this person from our lives and to cut the tie that bind us once and for all, the first step is to cease talking or thinking about that person; thus severing the imaginary string of energy that can link both of us.

My friend confessed that she was guilty of the same attitude with her ex-husband. She would express her resentment to her friends at all times perhaps looking for support and reassurance that the other party was the one at fault. In doing so, whatever energy she intended to use to forget him was ineffective. Her words and thoughts continued to attract him into her life in an indirect manner, but still part of her nonetheless.

So what's the secret? Start by cutting off any thoughts or words about the other person and you will begin to feel the energy dissipate. More importantly, you will regain control of your life and freedom.

Make your own pearls

How do oysters make pearls? Can we use the same concept to face our vicissitudes in life and turn them into pearls?

A foreign substance slips into the oyster between the mantle (organ that produces the shell) and the shell. It becomes sort of an ulcer that begins to irritate the mantle. The oyster's natural reaction is to cover up the irritant to protect itself with layers and layers of a substance called nacre. Eventually, the nacre turns the ulcer into a beautiful pearl.

The oyster doesn't reject the foreign substance that enters her dwelling. It is part of her environment, a danger that comes with her territory, an obstacle that she must face on a daily basis. Rather than complaining to King Neptune about the unfairness of this attack, she goes about her business and begins turning a setback into something wonderful.

We must also welcome the "foreign substance" that attacks our quarters - doubt, fear, anxiety, or lost hope. No matter how painful the experience, cover it with a strong belief that goodness will pervade reality and you will ultimately triumph.

Change is constant

Growth and development in our lives requires at times pain, sacrifice, and discomfort. One of the main reasons why most of us don't enjoy the quality of life we yearn is because we rather be comfortable than uncomfortable. Fighting change at all cost is the key element of our "comfort zone" even when we know subconsciously that is harming us. So why do so many of us rarely ever change? The answer is that we are creatures of habit. We do certain things in a certain way because "we have always done it that way, my family have always done it, it has worked for me, etc."

Lets try a little experiment. Fold your hands in your lap. Notice which thumb you have on top - left or right? Refold your hands so that the other thumb naturally ends up on top. This involves moving every finger in the previously lower hand up a notch. Notice how that feels. Does it feel awkward, uncomfortable, strange, weird, or "wrong?" Notice what your body wants to do. Does it want to go back to the first position, your "normal" position, your habitual condition? Now go back to the original position. How does that feel? Does it feel better, right, or comfortable again? Is it a relief to be back to the original position?

Stan Dale once said that "comfort zones are plush lined coffins. When you stay in your plush lined coffins, you die."