Successful?

I have had recent conversations with several clients that have circled their way around not being able to find success. We explored all the different definitions that we hold for success. You can imagine the topics ranged from income, to skill, to effectiveness, to education and so on. What always seems to stop everyone in their thought process is what is shared in the following quote: “The plain fact is that the planet does not need more “successful people”. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and human, and these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.” ~David Orr

What if you never meet the definition of what you think successful is? What if society never sees you as a success? And so we then begin to explore a new way of viewing what we would or could consider successful. First I challenge you to find a new word. Words that have presented themselves are thriving, fruitful, positive, fertile, abundant, rewarding, flourishing, booming, blooming, or blossoming! How fun are these options? How much different energies they hold? Think about it…thrive means to grow well! Flourishing….means to be healthy and whole! Rewarding…means satisfying! These simple words change EVERYTHING about what you originally believed about success. I would rather be any one of these words any day!

Suddenly you feel a shift in the possibilities and choices that you can make. Amazingly the things you were focusing on that felt like blocks or failures have lost some of their weight. Let’s think about our selves with different labels of what makes us unique and thriving. We often fail to recognize the value of the restorer, the peacemaker or the healer within our society. Yet without them our lives would be broken, chaotic, and unwell. Our society needs the courage of those of us who are ready to be everything we are meant to be; alive and vibrant, beautiful and giving, compassionate and healing, calming and wondrous and if it turns out that someone sees that as successful…well so be it! Celebrate the qualities that set you apart, honor the gifts that others cherish about you, utilize the strengths that empower others and love who you are fully.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

Connection to Truth

Finding ways to connect with our inner truth and soul is sometimes challenging especially if our time and focus is spent on the busy-ness of life, the requirements that eat up the day’s moments and absorb our energy. Today I want to share with you a quote that I often read to help me come back to that important place of focus for me. It keeps me in alignment with the path I am on and the call of spirit that resonates with my being. "The earth recognizes people in whom God flowers. There is a sensuousness, a centeredness, a grace to their movement. There is a relaxed gentility of power flowing quietly within and beneath their action. There is a humble assuredness about them, a reverence, a sense of humor and a sense of the sacred entwined. They are the magical people, for whom the earth has longed. " -Ken Carey

When I read these words and take them in I feel them flow through me like warm honey. Their sweetness soothes me. Their warmth calms me and then I find my truth again and I feel my soul’s embrace. I can be this being described above. I can especially when I look for the beauty in life and in others. I can especially when I stop and listen to what my heart is telling me. I can especially when I remove myself from the stories that try to wrap themselves around my ankles and trip me up. I focus on my truth and feel my soul’s embrace.

Too often we lose sight of this inner grace, this gentle unfolding of power, this humble sense of confidence, and this holding of honor and cherishing of the sacredness of life. We lose sight of who we truly are and become someone of the making of the roles assigned to us in life, the labels attached to our beings, and the expectations of others. We truly are not being authentic or clothing our self in the Divine essence offered us each and every day. Instead we pull together an assortment of costumes to wear; some too tight, some torn and frayed, and some discarded by others and tossed our way.

To learn how to not get caught up in the acts of inauthenticity and expectation and learn how to slowly step along the path of our own resonation, we find our happiness and we feel a completion within. Moments spent with others resonate with our soul, messages shared from Spirit fuel us on, and inspiration for our next step comes easily and without stress. This can be how our days are spent. There can be this much beauty within and around us and we can be of it always.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

The Grace In Letting Go

Life became ever so much easier when I finally accepted that I would befriend life! I would embrace its unfoldings and twists and turns with grace (sometimes not so gracefully) and with acceptance (and as little whining as possible). I recently came across this quote and immediately thought of how I would share it with you. “There is a great difference between defending life and befriending it. Defending life is often about holding on to whatever you have at all cost. Befriending life may be about strengthening and supporting life's movement toward its own wholeness. It may require us to take great risks, to let go, over and over again, until we finally surrender to life's own dream of itself.” ~ Rachel Naomi Remen

There is so much truth in this quote. When we are defending life we stick our heels in, we grab a hold and don’t want to let go and we justify and reason and excuse our way into holding on even tighter. Often this is done because we are afraid of the unknown. We would prefer staying in the comfort of even our dissatisfaction, boredom or disappointment. Sometimes we are scared we will fail. Sometimes we fear being judged. Sometimes we don’t even know why we are afraid.

But the act of releasing is what opens the door to the options, the choices and the moments for us to have the life we are intending to have. And isn’t that really the point? Sometimes we will have to suffer or feel loss, sometimes we do have to face fears, and sometimes we do have to screw up! But that is part of the big picture too! Those times are supposed to happen, they hold our lessons, our gifts or even our inspirations! They are the seeds waiting to burst forth in our personal garden. We need to stop stamping on them to keep them buried!

Awakening to the beauty of our dream in our real world is possible. We just have to learn how to do it. And if it is not modeled for us, it may feel awkwardly strange. If we have never been introduced to the importance of the letting go of control, we may not think we know how, but we do, innately, we do. Our inner truth, that little nudge you get when you are not being truthful with yourself or when you are making excuse after excuse is waiting to help you along, step by step. After a few attempts at letting go and surrendering, we begin to get better at it and feel a little less unnerved by it. And once we begin to see the beauty of it, the difference it makes in our lives and the way it impacts the essence of who we are….well, then there is a lovely relationship of graceful acceptance that enters your day.

Blessings ~ Lisa Meade ©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

Embracing the Shadow

“The problem with running away when a relationship becomes difficult is that it's also turning away from ourselves and our potential breakthroughs. Fleeing the raw, wounded places in ourselves because we don't think we can handle them is a form of self-rejection and self-abandonment that turns our feeling body into an abandoned, haunted house. The more we flee our shadowy places, the more they fester in the dark, and the more haunted this house becomes. And the more haunted it becomes, the more it terrifies us. This is a vicious circle that keeps us cut off from and afraid of ourselves."- John Welwood We don’t often want to face the shadows of ourselves. It is sometimes painful, often challenging and usually makes us feel quite vulnerable. But it is in the pliable place of vulnerability that our change can occur. If we can admit that we all need to change aspects of ourselves, that we outgrow ourselves, that we need to release old baggage and experience our breakthroughs, it makes the option of facing the dark shadows even more important.

We need to learn to stand in the face of our shadows and not run from them by creating stories or excuses. We are far stronger than we know ourselves to be. Our soul knows our strength and it will call to us when we are entering through the doors of self-rejection or self-abandonment. It does not want us not to be whole or to fragment our selves. Our innate wisdom knows that we will continue to cower in a corner unless we look into the face of the monster we have created for our shadow.

Yet, often, that is all it is. It is a manifestation of our fear that has grown larger than life in our minds and in our emotions. When we face our shadow, even if we need the support of someone to guide us on how to do this, we open wide the door for our personal growth and development. We move closer to our authenticity. We learn to look at our self with compassion and grace. And once we get comfortable with that….we then look to others with that same authenticity, compassion and grace. We bring it forward onto our daily path.

So the next time you are faced with your shadow, don’t back away, don’t retreat to the old story and excuses. Bravely look it in the eye, accept the lesson and gift it has brought with it. Open yourself up to the possibility that this time the effort will be worth it and that the freedom from fleeing this aspect of yourself will be worth it. Break the cycle and stop spinning in circles, instead take the step up out of the past and move into the brightness that the future holds for you.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade