Stop! Look! Listen! The universe is always speaking to us.
I saw this beautiful rainbow tonight. So beautiful I got out of my car to take a picture. As I was taking the picture I noticed the stop sign. At the same time my phone buzzed with a reminder I have on my phone to buzz me throughout the day as a reminder “Something Wonderful Is About To Happen”. I have this reminder because life happens sometimes. Life can feel Super crazy. For me this is a great reminder to always expect something wonderful.
Just when things get a little overwhelming, the universe steps in causing me to stop, look and the next thing I know my phone buzzes and causes me to listen. At that moment I am reminded “Something Wonderful Is About To Happen”.
Tonight it was a beautiful rainbow. Life is good and the good news is The Universe Has My Back always providing me with something wonderful. I just have to Stop, Look and Listen.
If we don’t change what isn’t working in our lives, we will continually have the same day over and over again. We have all had the experience of realizing that something in our lives is not working. This knowledge can come as a sudden realization or a nagging feeling of doubt that grows stronger, waking us up to the fact that something needs to change. Some people have a tendency to act rashly and make sweeping changes before even understanding what the problem is. Other people fear change, so they live with the uncomfortable awareness that something needs to shift but won’t do anything about it. Between these two extreme responses lies a middle way that can help us powerfully and gracefully change what isn’t working in our lives.
The first step is remembering that your life is made up of parts that belong to an interconnected whole. Changing one thing can change everything. Because of this, small changes often have a big effect. Sometimes much bigger changes are necessary, but the only way to know for sure is to take the time to really understand the problem. Examine your life as an entirety–your work, your relationships, where you live–and determine what specifically is not functioning the way you would like. Once you have figured out the problem, write it down on a piece of paper. For example, “I am not happy with my relationship” or “I don’t like my apartment.” The next step is to figure out the adjustment you would like to make and how you can go about making this change. If you are unhappy with your relationship because you spend too much or not enough time with your partner, you may want to discuss this problem with them and come up with a compromise. On the other hand, if you realize your relationship is not working to such a degree that it needs to end, begin working through that process. Writing down the truth can be a powerful catalyst for change.
The key to making changes that work is to accept the necessity of change as part of life. As we change, we may find it necessary to fine-tune our relationships, work, and living situations. Our lives are living, breathing entities that reflect our dynamic selves.
(I took this photo on the Road To Hana) Velma Dunkin
As I was on my walk today I took this picture of an orchard by my house. I thought it was so pretty. The icicles on the ground looked beautiful. As I took the photo I could see the end of the row in the distance. Such is life. Often times we find ourselves facing trials and challenges but if we keep our focus on the road ahead, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Even when the journey there seems so far away we can rest assure that the challenge will narrow and before we know it we will make it to the other side and just like this photo the road behind us will be far away.
If you want to be a successful painter, you will at first fail on numerous canvases. And if you want to be a successful mathematician, you will at first fail in solving the equations. If you want to be a successful writer, your manuscripts will be rejected endlessly until one of them isn’t. But there will never come a point when you stop failing, because that’s what creativity is about. What works can only be known against the backdrop of what doesn’t—and if you’re too afraid to ever risk establishing that backdrop, personally and professionally, then you’ll never know what success is like. In the Hebrew Bible, we have the beautiful images in Jeremiah, for example, in the potter’s house where he comes to understand that even as Israel screws everything up over and over again, God—like a potter with clay in hand—is patient and allows the remodeling to take place, allows us to try again, to become the beautiful creation intended from the beginning. If we cannot live because we fear failure, then we cannot be good Christians because it is a faith predicated on being often diametrically opposed to worldly success. If you want to be successful, you need to learn to fail well.