The Value of Dreams

Dreaming is about living purposefully. It’s about asking yourself THE questions: what you want to do, what you want to have and who and how you want to be. It’s about getting clear with yourself. It's about, in the moments when life happens to us, being more likely to make decisions that will get you closer to your dreams. Think of dreams as the compass for your life. YOU knowing YOU.

HOW do you do it? WHERE do you start? 

Get a piece of paper and pen. Write your list down. Carry it around with you for a week....add to it. Don't edit yourself at first. Write whatever comes to mind. There aren't any right or wrong dreams. You can figure out later if you want to keep things on your list. Don't start from nothing every time. Change the list as you change. Put your list somewhere that it calls out to you to revisit it often - until your dreams become part of you. Writing your list down also means that your dreams become a physical thing - you can hold your list in your hands - it doesn't just exist in your mind. 

Ask yourself:

• What do I want to do?
• What do I want to have?
• Who and how do I want to be?

Lastly, share your list. It's like opening a window to your soul.

Duality

love this word

It encompasses many of the concepts I've been processing:
Balance
Cognitive dissonance
Fear/love
Happiness/sadness
Good/bad
Shared/hidden
Yin/yang

Within and without

It represents the fact that you can be all things at once.

See saw.......the concept of balance, once again

Why is the idea of straddling the middle so difficult for me?

There is no middle. There is one side or the other. Oh crap. Now I just thought, "There is grey." So, what do I mean? hmmmm.

It think it means that I can't stand to be stuck in the middle - not knowing whether to go left or right, up or down, backward or forward.........you get the point.

I want conviction for everything I do. 

Now, that's a good word. I don't know that I've ever written it before. I wish I could give "conviction" away wrapped in a bow.

On this......

drab, dreary day that can't decide whether it's going to be spring

on this.......

day that's neither here nor there

on this.....

day

I protect what I am so that I can keep being what I am

And she walked.......

distracted by her phone
tuned into whatever message she had just received
unaware of the way her energy radiated waves
the way the light spoke to the curve of her neck
and the dance of her hair
and the casualness of what she was
her power

Pink sunlight

Do you every notice those precious few minutes of the day when the sun infuses everything it touches with a pink glow?

Even the simplest things can look beautiful because you see them in a completely different way.

I'm sitting on my couch looking at the landscape change before me. In the distance, two birds have landed at the very tip of a tree reminding me of the yellow finches that used to perch on the telephone wires outside my apartment building. I'm in love with the idea that two birds in the distance have the ability to change me at this moment. Do those birds know that by landing right there right then they gave me the gift of a memory?

Life Accelerates

I wrote this on 8/20/2007 and it's every bit as true today.

I was sitting in a meeting today and someone said "Life accelerates."

Talk about something resonating, While it's accelerating, I'm trying to hold on. It's like riding a rollercoaster in the dark. Not only does it keep getting faster, but I never know what twists and turns are around the corner. Will something happen to slow it down or will daylight come and give me visibility the things waiting ahead?

Life's bumps

I saw this sign and had to pop out of my car to take the pic.

It made me smile.

What if all of life's bumps could be labeled this clearly?

My immediate thought was, "You'd avoid them."

But then someone pointed out that we wouldn't always and questioned whether we would want to.

That's right. We wouldn't always, for a variety of reasons. Maybe it's too late to avoid it - too late to change course.

Would we want to CHANGE it? Lovely. Those bumps inform us of who we are, who we want to be - they teach us how to be different.

hmmmmmmm

100 I believe's.....

1. I believe that you can choose to be happy in most moments
2. I believe that happy and sad aren't mutually exclusive
3. I believe that everyone's truth is different
4. I believe you can always find something to appreciate
5. I believe people are beautiful - they rock
6. I believe what you appreciate appreciates
7. I believe procrastination is a bad habit that I'm good at, unfortunately
8. I believe everyone can change - neuroplasticity
9. I believe smiling is a fantastic practice
10. I believe friends are priceless
11. I believe cheese does make it taste better
12. I believe I learn from my kids all the time
13. I believe even when I'm failing, I'm succeeding
14. I believe I get better as I get older
15. I believe books are treasures - you never know what you're going to get
16. I believe in the energy of people
17. I believe you can have fun anywhere with anyone doing anything
18. I believe in the moment when the dots connect
19. I believe in talking
20. I believe you can speak and not say a word
21. I believe the sky provides an unending source of beauty
22. I believe you create your reality by how you think
23. I believe being in a place you've never been before is incredibly enjoyable
24. I believe some days you should set a goal of making people smile
25. I believe in taking emotional risks
26. I believe in sharing more than I should
27. I believe that some of the best conversations are the ones I have with myself
28. I believe the universe speaks, but sometimes you have to listen closely
29. I believe a lot of things are worth repeating
30. I believe there might be something to the idea of manifestation
31. I believe I would be better if I slept more, meditated, and drank more water
32. I believe that personal reflection creates a pivot point
33. I believe in getting excited
34. I believe in being silly - no matter what others think
35. I believe in the value of everyone expressing their opinion
36. I believe in saying, "What the hell......I'll see what happens." occasionally
37. I believe that money should be used to facilitate experiences
38. I believe in being curious
39. I believe I'm right where I'm supposed to be
40. I believe in random acts of kindness
41. I believe in asking yourself who and how you want to be in life and figuring out if you are showing up that way
42. I believe doubt is a mortal enemy
43. I believe being stuck is one of the worst things
44. I believe that you should set a goal of finding a way to bloom in existence, not just exist
45. I believe that my job as a parent is to help my kids have knowingness about who and how they want to be, what they want to do, what they want to have
46. I believe in trying to fill up my life with more wants and minimizing the shoulds
47. I believe that a lot of our existence is driven by fear and once we understand the reward of stepping across the line of fear, we'll do it more often
48. I believe by traveling across lands or across viewpoints, we can see that there are valid places beyond those that exist in our minds
49. I believe in cognitive dissonance. I don't like it but I believe in it
50. I believe the tangled webs we weave are difficult to escape but beautiful nonetheless
51. I believe that life is a delicious comedy
52. I believe in deep breaths
53. I believe in setting life to music as much as possible
54. I believe that I'm a looong ways from perfect - would perfect be boring?
55. I believe in renewal
56. I believe in resilience
57. I believe in feeding yourself the way you need to be fed
58. I believe the moments I'm left speechless are priceless
59. I believe some people are toxic and you should try not to get detoured by them
60. I believe the only way you can truly understand opportunity costs is by achieving knowingness
61. I believe in training your brain
62. I believe giving, taking and sharing moments
63. I believe in surrounding myself with people that support me, challenge me, remind me
64. I believe that people, ideas, moments are the "dots" of my life and at the end of my life, they will be connected to see the picture of me
65. I believe it only takes a moment to change me
66. I believe in baby steppin....chunking it up
67. I believe you can keep going long after you think you can't
68. I believe everything changes, either because it changes or you change
69. I believe today is different from yesterday and tomorrow will be different from today as it will be the accumulation of all the yesterdays
70. I believe simple, happy moments accumulate into a spectacularly happy life
71. I believe in following your bliss
72. I believe it's important to have people that expect you to be someone
73. I believe that it's okay not to listen to everyone
74. I believe we are all students and we are all teachers
75. I believe in sinking into the moments ripe with calm
76. I believe that everything in the universe is within you
77. I believe we should dream and dreams inform you about what to do now
78. I believe presence makes you aware of absence. It’s not until you step into the light, that you can see how much you were in the dark
79. I believe it's never too early or too late to be who you want to be
80. I believe there's an appropriate time to repress or ignore
81. I believe that a week without pizza is.....well....a week without pizza
82. I believe that hate is an unproductive emotion
83. I believe that you can see energy
84. I believe in karma and yin yang
85. I believe bad is on the way to good. The good isn’t as good without the bad. It’s all part of the journey
86. I believe in trusting my intuition. I might fight with myself about doing it, but I believe in it
87. I believe it’s not just about the details. Sometimes it’s about the big picture
88. I believe I’m horrible about keeping good surprises to myself
89. I believe in the power of words
90. I believe I can talk to anyone
91. I believe that rules are made to be broken
92. I believe in messing up
93. I believe in giving yourself over to the possibilities
94. I believe in closing your eyes and soaking it in
95. I believe in learning
96. I believe it’s all good
97. I believe you can be everything all at once
98. I believe in the spark in people’s eyes
99. I believe in faith in the future, me, and the power of people
100. I believe in Michele’s world