Video Podcast : Episode 7 : Three Actions to Help You Move Forward

VIDEO: Three Actions to Help You Move Forward

I was so inspired by a YouTube video featuring Lisa Nichols where she talked about her rise to living her dream.

In my evolution, I am hungry to change the circumstances of my life. I am increasingly aware that if I want a different result then I need to do something different in every moment. My vision board is a bunch of post-its on my wall. The post-its have due dates, specific scenarios, meeting and speaking with certain people, and bank balances that I will manifest. In all my 43 years, I have attempted the typical collage-style vision board with pictures and that just didn't work for me. I love my post-its and I love my handwriting. I have excellent penmanship and there's just a connection between my mind and the actual writing of the vision of my life. Every day I want to add more.

As I make this transition, I realize that I have a lot of hang-ups and emotional things that have held me back for so long. Leaving Hawai'i and my old job was one of the ways I let go of things that are not authentically me anymore. So often we let life move us along. I was so used to reacting to things instead of being actively engaged in choosing the life I want to live. That's not me anymore.

A little over a year ago, I was melting down. I was riding in the car with my older brother telling him how trapped I felt. It was like my divorce had begun to peel away layers of my life that no longer served me. At that time, I had just watched that Steve Harvey clip where he talks about taking risks and doing the thing you love doing. My brother is driving and I am crying my eyes out talking about how my life is not what I had envisioned for myself. The future seemed bleak if I continued on the path that I was on - trapped by a job that forced me to comply with their strict code of conduct and my heart so weathered and broken. I was doing the ugly cry and my brother said, "Then jump! It's time to jump!" He set my mind at ease by addressing all of my concerns that were holding me back. In that moment, I decided to JUMP. 

Deciding to JUMP was the easy part. Undoing all the years of negative self-talk has proved to be the real challenge. I am a positive person to everyone else but myself. I can talk someone up and shiny them up for the world but I have a difficult time in talking myself up. Every day I make a conscious effort to say, 

"I can do this." 

"I got this." 

"I am brave and courageous." 

"I am talented." 

"I am loved."

Whether it's social or cultural conditioning that has made me only focus on the things that I'm not so good at, I want to end that practice now. I am going to celebrate all of the good things about me and walk in my most perfect truth. You should too. When we are sure of who we are, nothing anyone says matters. You take that power back from whoever or whatever you gave it to. Own your life decisions and actively engage in creating the life you want.

I don't care anymore about the criticisms of small-minded people. And some of my closest friends clown my attempt to change the circumstances of my life. I really don't need that type of negativity in my life so I keep my distance. I want to be surrounded by people who have achieved the things that I want to achieve. I want to be surrounded by people who are cheering me on and assisting me on my rise.

The morning I let go of the guilt surrounding my shortcomings as a daughter. If you watched the video, this will make sense to you.

Happy, Even

This morning I feel as light as a feather.

As many of my blog followers know, I have been working on my first novel. I have started several novels before, wrote the first chapter then just stopped. But this one, the one I'm working on now, has so much fuel and fire on it that I have no option but to write, write, and finish it. I have taken out my old journals for inspiration so that I can push through the writing. I have an aggressive goal of completing the first draft by the end of April. This would mean that I have to write about 10,000 words per week. If I write six days a week, that's about 1,700 words a day. Aggressive, I know! I am already behind so there is a lot of catching up to do this week. If I combined what I write in my handwritten journal with this blog and what I add to my novel, I would kill the 1,700-words-per-day goal.

So why do I feel light as a feather today?

Well, I pulled out my journals the other day to make my second video on my YouTube Channel. (I posted the video of me talking about my journals.) I decided to read my journals for inspiration and let me tell you the emotion was coming off the page. I cried and sobbed as I read. And it was THE UGLY cry, the stutter cry with stuff coming out of my nose and tears flowing from my eyes. It was not pretty.

Everyone gets one first love. Mine happens to be my first husband. So much of who I am today was shaped because of that first love and the heartbreak of that first love. We have been through so much together and in some of my hardest times, he was the only one standing with me. I knew I loved him when we had our first real conversation. And my love is true ride-or-die love. I don't have any quit in me. Reading the journals was like revisiting the hurt because of my devotion to that man. At the end of our relationship, he really had nothing left for me. No affection. No love. No care for me. Reading through those emotions and events of unrequited love really sent me into a crying fit.

Last night I sent a facebook message to him with some of the journal entries that I had read. He did not recall treating me so cruelly and perhaps he did not think he was doing that. But since I was on the receiving end of his inability to show me love, I am the teller of the story. He allowed me to express my hurt. I cried and cried as I read and wrote those words to him. It was like a small weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I felt that pain again, expressed it to the man that I had once loved with complete abandon, and then I let it go.

You may wonder why I am dealing with my first husband. I believe much of my current issues has to do with that first heartbreak. As I revamp my life and reinvent me, I'm taking my hurt alllll the way back to when I first felt my heart break and that was with my first husband. When I've healed from that I will make my way forward to my current divorce. Of course it messes with me that two men left me in my short 41 years. I can't say why nor do I understand it at the present moment. I don't know what I do that is deplorable to them that they cannot stay committed to the relationship. What I know is that I am a damn good woman even if they cannot see my value. I move forward with so many lessons learned and no love lost. I am still as excited about love as I have always been. New love. Butterflies in my belly. Bring on that crazy kinda love that sets off fireworks in my soul. I'm ready!

I know there is much healing ahead of me and that this will probably not be my last cry session. But for today I feel great. Light as a feather. Happy, even.

Letting Go... A Rambling of Thoughts

A couple of weeks ago, I buried my uncle. A man I considered to be my second father. **sigh**

A couple of days ago another uncle passed -- so sudden.

Today, they found my cousin's body at the bottom of a famous cliff.

I don't quite know what to make of it all. Just a year and a half ago, my mother left this world also. I can't help feeling a little envious of the people that have gone on from this life and are moving toward eternity. That's where my mom is, right? Isn't she out there in the great universal heaven where we are all fated to go some day?

Hearing the news of my cousin missing since Thursday was a shocker. We weren't very close but I always used to think it was so sweet that every time he saw me he would invite me to one of his singing gigs around the island. Apparently, from all the Facebook posts from friends, he invited everyone to his gigs. LOL. Someone reported him missing. The police found his car and soon after they found his body at the bottom of the cliff.

I don't quite know what to make of all the death around me. Should I feel happy and hopeful that someday I will meet them again? I feel like life is starting to be about letting go. All the different stages in our lives are about letting go of the past to embrace what's ahead. I used to think I was really good at that. As I age, I'm getting less and less good at letting go.

Most times I wish things could be just as it was at my happiest moments -- feeling my parent's love; seeing my first niece come into this world; seeing my husband for the first time; seeing the light in my baby brother's eyes when he came into our lives; allllll very magical moments that I wish I could experience in every single breath that I take.

When we buried my uncle before Thanksgiving, as I said my last tearful goodbye, I only thought of my mother on the other side. I miss her so very much and I wish I could see her and talk to her and hear her voice again. I don't think I will ever let her go and I don't want to. I do however want to let go of the idea that she has died. I can let that go and be peaceful in the fact that our energies will meet again and we will put aside the ramblings of this world and trade it for an eternity of endless living.

Words of Encouragement

If you haven't done it yet, do it now! Forgive yourself for all the crazy things you think you've done and let it go.

If there is regret in your soul, let it go. Let it go now! We are each on a path that is uniquely our own. No one else can live it. No one else can overcome and move forward as you do under the circumstances that you find yourself in. This is your life. Each choice you make is yours to make and only yours. You will live the consequences and you will reap the blessings. This journey is yours alone to decide to be great or just average.

Your potential for greatness is unlimited. The opportunities to learn, grow, and serve the world are as numerous as the sands of the sea. Every day, every person you come in contact with is sent especially to you for some great purpose. This life, this world is not an accident; not some random act of nature but an exact expression of God's greatness. You, me, and everyone in the world was carved in his image and have all of eternity to grow into the divine heritage from which we came. Remember that forever is in every moment.

Greatness does not necessarily mean you need to be approved of by the world. Greatness does not come in large displays of integrity, but in the silent moments when no one is looking. Greatness begins by living a courageous life, by doing good things, by being kind and compassionate, by keeping committments and promises; by making and keeping sacred covenants with God and self. Greatness is, at its core, a continuous expression of gratitude to the living Creator.

If there is love inside your heart, give it away every day! The only real and enduring peace comes from believing in love and giving it away at every opportunity. Many times in life, we expect to be on the receiving end of love and yet give nothing to the universe to deserve it. Love yourself. Love everything around you. This, above all, is the greatest gift you could give to a supreme creator -- to love all of his creations as he would!

Remember that inside of you is a goddess in embryo. And that goddess is made of compassion and unconditional love NOT judgement. She embraces you with every heartache you experience. So stop living so much in your head and allow the goddess inside of you to love you back to perfection.