Making Time for Play, Adventure and Delight

Giggles erupt from mouth, tears are rolling down my cheeks and my sides ache from the continuing belly laughter. I am with my family, laughing away at some silliness, some funny personal story, some delightful joke shared among us. These moments are often in my home. The laughter becomes contagious, the mood lighter, the memories deeper and we fall in love with one another again and again. Our souls are at play together, sharing and delighting in the energies. Our souls are alive and vibrantly dancing in the flow of the creative energies of the moment. These energies are what help our souls thrive. These energies of fun, freedom, playfulness and wonder are what keep our creativity alive. Creativity grows in the fertile ground of play and wonder. It finds an ease in being. Our soul finds newness and vibrancy in the folds of it and expand its many colors, it flavors, it sounds and it textures. It awakens ideas, encourages actions, empowers dreams and expands visions.

Stress and and overwhelm stifle our creativity. When we fail to make time for play, when we stop seeking adventure and we hold off on delight, we limit the space our soul can breathe in. The flow for these energies can become blocked off. We need to feed our soul healthy doses of this generative time so that there is an abundance of energies flowing for the gradual pooling of our creative juices.

Marion Woodman shares, "If we fail to nourish our souls, they wither, and without soul, life ceases to have meaning.... The creative process shrivels in the absence of continual dialogue with the soul. And creativity is what makes life worth living." We can always find another thing on our list of what needs to be tended to, someone is always around to ask a favor of us, and we often find ourselves stuck in the rut of doing and find it challenging to break the cycle and step outside of it to find adventurous play time. But like most activities that are really good for us, as difficult as it can be to get started, once we do them and begin to enjoy them...we don't want to stop!

Our soul let's us know we are on the right track. There is a beautiful flow to our day. Obstacles do not stop us in our tracks, instead we find creative ways to incorporate them, to move through them and to appreciate them. Our soul encourages us to keep our commitment to the time for play, laughter and delight. It knows how much it will fuel us. It knows how strong our energies become and how inspired we become from these energies. Our days become filled with focus, with dreams, with vision, and with love. Soul is always creative, fresh and new. It is part of its very essence.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

Finding the Union With My Soul

Have you noticed that life is filled with comparisons? From the time we are born it begins. And it continues to go on to varying degrees throughout our lifetime. More often than not, comparison is our ego trying to get us to focus on how we are different from others. In a society that does not support healthy self esteem and loves to invest in the energy around the haves and have nots....this is a dangerous path to walk to. It shuts us down. It divides. It disengages us from our soul. To find the union with my soul I prefer to focus energies on recognizing and celebrating the ways we are the same. Finding commonality between peers creates a bridge that communication can cross over. It is what often draws the heart to follow the love thread when we meet our partner. How much we share in common offers a sense of recognition and delights the soul.

When we separate ourselves from others through our beliefs we think we are in control. We get big in ego, we are not being authentic and do not invite positive energies into the relationship. When shift our perspective to be open and receptive, welcoming and inviting, non-judgmental and hold the vision of love, we have moved into our soul presence. Positivity begins to flow and we find ourselves invested in the relationship.

When we hold the vision of our connection with everything, life expands. As Wayne Dyer states, "As a holistic being you shatter the illusion of your separateness and reveal your connection to everything. This empowers you in a way that the ego-driven self could never contemplate." We learn that egoic beliefs separate while soul love unites.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

My Hot List

Ok, I will admit it. I am a list maker. It is part of my organizational skills. I rarely look at them once I write them. It is the act of writing them that keeps me focused and organized in my intentions and flow throughout the day. All I know is it works for me. Over time my lists have evolved. I decided I could use the power of the list making process to my benefit in more ways than simply remembering things to do or get. I began to develop what I now call my HOT list. This list is basically a "to do" list but with bigger intentions. This list contains things that REALLY matter to me and the life I am choosing to live, things that genuinely impact the quality of my life in the best ways possible, a list that is in alignment with my very soul.

Every day this list reminds me to be sure to dedicate time to focus on these things, some days it is only 15 - 30 minutes and other days it is a full day. Some days I write about these things, some days I put energies into their creation. Some days I plan what I need to do to manifest these things into my life, or what I need to release to make room for them.

I once read a quote by S. Covey, "You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage -- pleasantly, smilingly, unapologetically -- to say 'no' to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside." I changed the word "priorities" to possibilities. That felt even truer to me. It is a quote I live by.

I have learned the value of my numerous lists in life. Whether they bring organization or possibilities, it is a win/win for me. I have also learned that my HOT list, really is just that. It is filled with my fiery passions, it holds burning embers and keeps sparks alive. This list has taught me that to get the life I want to live, to have the experiences, the relationships, the challenges, the possibilities...I have to first decide what I truly want and then I have to invest myself into them.

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade

What If I Chose Differently Today?

What if I chose differently today? What if I broke out of my normal response, perspective and assumptions. What if I headed right and then took a sharp left? What if I said yes instead of no or no instead of yes? Oh the possibilities! This is all part of heightened awareness that we all can bring to our day. We have so much choice in how we live our lives. Every day, every moment we can choose a new experience for ourselves. This is particularly true when we find that we are doing again and again something that is not really working for us. But imagine doing this even when things are working? Can you challenge, even just on occasion, the old, "if it is not broken...don't CHANGE it?" Why not? Why not do something different?

What would happen if we were not so serious? If we laughed more, breathed more deeply or paid attention a bit more closely? Endless possibilities and opportunities could come our way! This is one of my favorite ways to shake things up. Anytime I feel dull, bored, restless or stuck...I do things differently. It can be something small or something on the larger scale...my choice!

Taking myself off of auto pilot works for me. I take a good look at the situation and access. Do I want to do what I always do, or what others would expect me to do? Maybe doing something different can enrich my experience and shift the energies. I won't know unless I try. And so I try. Sometimes a new way of thinking or a fresh approach is exactly what I needed to get the energies flowing again in a direction that resonates with my soul!

I cannot always decide what will happen in my life, what will come my way...but I can choose what I will do with it, how I will approach it and how much energy I am willing to extend to it. Living in the moment, being present, looking for the possibilities and checking in help the energies that surround me to be vibrant and flowing, alive and abundant!

Blessings ~ Lisa

©COPYRIGHT 2013 Lisa Meade