Soul Pancake handed out a bunch of frames to people on the street and asked them to find beauty in the world around them. As one very wise participant shared, “I think that if we took some time, if we looked up, we looked down, we looked at each other, we would find that there is beauty everywhere around us.”
“Trust the wait. Embrace the uncertainty. Enjoy the beauty of becoming. When nothing is certain, anything is possible.” ~Mandy Hale
Sitting in the auditorium during orientation, I listened to various deans, distinguished alumni, and student leaders drone on about the rigors of earning a law degree.
There were obligatory mentions of not everyone making it to graduation (or even the end of the first week) and of the intense strain on personal relationships.
But the message I remembered most clearly was about uncertainty.
“You better get comfortable with gray areas. And fast. Because the legal field is not a place …
“Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out.” ~John Wooden
“Why don’t you just take up swimming?” the doctor asked.
I was twenty years old, single-minded in my pursuit of a dance career, visiting yet another doctor about the vicious tendinitis that had forced me to give up my spot at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City.
What the doctor didn’t understand is that dance isn’t just a sporting activity; it’s a way of life, an identity.
Telling a young dancer to “just take up swimming” is about as helpful …
“Some people think it’s holding on that makes one strong–sometimes it’s letting go.” ~Unknown
When I accepted a position with a small company, I thought I had found everything I wanted: challenging work in my field, flexible hours, a laid-back atmosphere, and a short commute.
My new job seemed to be perfect, but soon I realized it wasn’t.
While I loved the kind of work I did, the “casual” atmosphere ended up being too casual. Hearing racy jokes and mocking comments became part of my workday. The jokes seemed to become more offensive as days went by.
Then the gossip …
“More important than the quest for certainty is the quest for clarity.” ~Francois Gautier
Isn’t it funny—and annoying and brilliant—how often things turn out to be nothing like we thought they would?
Six years ago I was recovering from a breakdown and reacquainting myself with my long dormant artistic side, and I remember spending a lot of time wondering what my “thing” was.
You know, that one specific thing in this life that I was destined to do to be fulfilled, and ideally from which I would earn a comfortable living.
I had always loved creativity, and particularly art, and …
“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown
For most of my life, I’ve seen the world in black and white, and I’ve felt constricted and pained as a result.
When I was a young girl, I believed there were good people and bad people, and I believed I was bad.
When I was an adolescent, I believed there was good food and bad food, and because everything tasty fell into the latter category, I channeled the shame from feeling bad into bulimia.
And when I grew into adulthood, I believed there were good decisions and bad …
“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens.” ~Pema Chodron
You know that foreboding fear we all have—that something will go terribly wrong and life will never be the same again?
Mine is that something will happen to our daughter. She is our only child. We battled infertility for years before conceiving her. I keep telling myself that it’s just an irrational fear and that every parent probably has it to some extent, but it’s a constant companion that stealthily follows me around everywhere I go.
So, on …
“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi
Have you ever wondered if there is such a thing as true love, like in the good old movies of Casablanca or The Notebook? Maybe you’ve found your true love. Or perhaps you’re still searching.
When I was a teenager, I was mesmerized by this dream that someday there would be someone who would love me so unconditionally that he would literally die for me. After all, you see that all the time in …
“The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.” ~Ralph Blum
Divorce. Not an activity that I ever had on my to-do list and not something I contemplated when I got engaged in Paris. Who does?
We’ve all heard the statistics that one in three marriages ends in divorce. Yet this is something that happens to someone else and certainly not a possibility to focus on while skipping down the aisle.
People change or they don’t, as the case may be. Unless both parties are exceptional communicators, it can be challenging to stay on the …
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole lives waiting to start living.” ~Eckhart Tolle
One key lesson I learned on my journey to developing my business knowledge base is that everything is built from the ground up, and each stage has important lessons for the subsequent stages. Sometimes we are only privy to the first stages.
Other times, we only see the middle and final stages. These are the times when we are wowed at how fast things have happened for others, and we become insecure and worried about the pace of our growth.
No one …
“Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.” ~Pema Chodron
Contained within your fears is genuine wisdom waiting to be discovered. Don’t underestimate this.
In order to tap into this wisdom, you must interview your fears, meeting them with curiosity and compassion. Allow them to speak their wisdom to you. Listen deeply; get into the details in order pin down exactly what they are trying to communicate. Honor whatever it is you find.
You see, these fears are like little children. They will kick and scream until you meet them with empathy. So do …
I saw this in my Facebook feed the other day along with the words “Life goes by so fast,” and while that was precisely what I thought when watching this, it also struck me how beautiful this woman looks at every age.
It’s not physical beauty I’m referring to, though she’s attractive. It’s the light in her eyes that never dims. If there’s one thing I wish for myself, and others, it’s to maintain that light through every stage, and through every change, knowing we are beautiful.
“Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy.” ~Eckhart Tolle
Have you ever had a big financial expense knock you down?
I had one of those situations hit me many years ago. I had just gone through a tough breakup, was experiencing regrets about my career choice, and was also struggling to get on my feet financially.
I was feeling beat down and decided to try to lift myself up by getting my finances in better shape. I …
“If you believe yourself to be limited in some way, whether or not it is true, it becomes true for you.” ~Brian Tracy
I have often wondered why the most formative years of one’s life, in early childhood, tend to be the hardest for us to recall.
Most of us cannot even begin to tap into those memories. Those scant memories that do bubble up to the surface are often fog-tinged and dreamlike. Images or sensations may appear, but the linear, day-to-day recollection evades us.
Perhaps Mother Nature does have a sense of humor, because, oddly enough, it is usually …
“Sometimes the wrong choices bring us to the right places.” ~Unknown
“This is it,” I thought. I finally found the man I had been waiting for.
Of course, it had taken me thirty-nine years and a painful divorce from my husband of ten years. But that was all worth it, I told myself, because it had led me to the man who seemed to see, understand, and love me the way I had always hoped someone would.
Things were blissful in beginning. We made breakfasts together, took romantic vacations to exotic locations, we fantasized about buying vacation houses. Our developing …
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