Tag: Wayne dyer

Looking in the Right Places

Is this house crooked or is it the street? Or the picture? Or your glasses ?

There’s nothing like a summer night at the baseball field to remember small town life and the simpler things.

The cool air, the beautiful mountains so close you could touch them. Sweaty, sticky little innocent faces whose whole lives are ahead of them. The crack of a bat, the anxious parents yelling to “Hurry! Get the ball!” As if there were any other goal of the game.

It’s all so surreal to me….

It’s been 11 years since I left the small town life and moved to the “Big City”. Luckily every summer I can go back to that life when watching my grandkids play baseball.

Many nights were spent at the ball park in my home town and the next one over where I raised my kids. So, of course I know many people there. Small town families are notoriously all have that LOOK that you can usually place them in their respective families. However, last night they all looked like strangers to me. People from a whole different world. I might as well have been back in the city, where everyone is anonymous.

So I asked my daughter, “how come I don’t recognize anyone?”
She said, “Well, are you looking in the right places? Because this is a whole other generation & your people are over there in the rocking chairs in the shade!”
She was right.

I was looking in the wrong places. How many times in my life had I done that very thing?

Sometimes it’s not at the ball field. Sometimes it’s on dating sites or on a social media post that we interpret to our own personal experience and jump to conclusions about what it must mean. 

Wherever we are, we will find what we are looking for.

If we are in the habit of feeding our fears or insecurities, we will most certainly find things that will.

Brene` Brown states:

Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don't belong. You will always find it because you've made that your mission. Stop scouring people's faces for evidence that you're not enough. You will always find it because you've made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don't negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you.

There’s an old story of a couple who were moving and pulled up to a gas station in their new town. They asked the attendant if the town was friendly. The attendant said, “Was your old town friendly?” “No, not at all”. The woman said. The attendant shook his head: “Then this one won’t be either”.

Our preconceived notions can set us up for failure. When we are unable start a new experience with a blank slate; we will experience what we always have. People who have a “chip on their shoulder” are very obvious to others even if they don’t think they are. In fact, they often wonder why the world is so cruel, or why others are so unhelpful or even ‘rude.’

So, how can we find what we are looking for, yet have a blank slate free from expectations or judgements? How to be like a child who can play and acclimate in almost any situation? I believe it’s because they have one goal in mind- to have fun. They have an intention.

“Our intention creates our reality”- Wayne Dyer

If we are intent on finding something that helps us grow, we will. If we (usually subconsciously) are looking for something that offends us or irritates us, we will. All of us have had those days when we wake up on the wrong side of the bed and everything goes wrong. We keep waiting for our luck to change as if something will drop out of the sky and change our life. Until we realize we have the power to change the mood, the day, or at least stop the barrage of negative thoughts that seem to attack us.

In order to find what we are looking for, we not only have to look in the right places, we have to BE in the right place ourselves.

How to get there?

Habits for Well Being has a great list Here:

  • Writing in your journal.
  • Meditating.
  • Reading an inspiring quote or poem.
  • Go for a walk or run (if you are able to).
  • Spend some time stretching or doing yoga.
  • Focus on a power word for the day, week, month or year.

It isn’t easy, especially when we are so focused on our problems, or on that one thing that seems to be our kryptonite.

I’m going to try it today.

I’m going to limit my social media time so I’m not drawn into conflict or endless debates on things that drain my energy.

I’m going to spread light and love, especially since it’s my daughter’s 24 th birthday and the fact that I have her AND my amazing prodigal 35 year old son close by, is seriously a miracle.

I’m going to focus on seeing the good. I’m going to look for the helpers as if I’m riding the train into Mr Roger’s neighborhood.

May you find what you’re looking for on this happy & bright Saturday.

New Hopes, Dreams & Intentions

On New Year’s Eve I watched our one and only firework we bought for $5.99 blow away the night sky with amazing sparks and sounds. I thought, “wow this is incredible! It’s more than I imagined from such a small package”.

It goes along with what I’ve been thinking that all that’s gold doesn’t glitter and how things are so ready to entice us into thinking they are.

I was thinking if I wanted to convince someone to come around to my way of thinking, I would likely try to put the fear in them that if they didn’t do (A) then this (B) is what would happen.

Ya know? Like Pavlov.

With addiction, threats and punishment doesn’t seem to create the desired result.

In fact, nothing seems to work. This creates a Petri dish of fear that breeds in it’s own bacteria causing more and more of the same. 

If I were fear I would take away your clarity.
If I were fear, I'd take away your passion. 
If I were fear I'd make you think there was no hope. 
If I were fear I'd find every way possibly for you to say, "Why try?" 
If I were fear, I'd push people away who have the ability to help, but not the knowledge. 
If I were fear, I'd place every obstacle in your path.
If I were fear, i'd make you think you were not loved or lovable. 
If I were fear, I'd make sure you felt crazy enough to not talk to people who care. 
If I were fear, my ultimate goal would be to control your thoughts, feelings and actions. 
Because if I can control just one little thought and keep it inside your head long enough, then I control YOU! 
Hello my name is fear, nice to meet you.

I remember when I was a young mother and I became frustrated with my surroundings, I used to tell myself to do the opposite of what I thought. I figured if what I was doing wasn’t working then I needed to try something else. What I didn’t know then, was that was the power of intention’s tiny seeds being planted and sown.

With the New Year week just starting, one of my intentions is to not feed into this Petri dish. As a nurse, I’ve been trained to nip infections in the bud or to not let them start.

So I’m going to feed my Petri dish good things to grow.

Intentions of kindness

Intentions of acceptance

Intentions of love

Intentions of understanding.

Wayne Dyer was the king of intentions.

If your past Petri dish has not grown what you thought it would maybe it’s time to change what you put in it.

May we all have the courage to change our trajectory of creation.

The Lure of the Chicken

Admit it. You’ve done it.

You’ve bought the chicken. You were minding your business, heading straight for the veggie section and there it was. The cart.

The smell. The warm roasted herbs and spices hit you at exactly the right (or wrong) time when you’re suddenly ravaged with hunger while running errands. The trouble is, it’s kind of an illusion. Not an illusion like McDonald’s where the bright colored flashy menus show thick, high (like 4 inches high) burgers with brightly colored lettuce and fresh pickles; but which are a stark contrast to what you pull out of the brown paper bag. Stuff which has been shown in experiments to last YEARS without biodegrading.

No, this illusion is a real chicken. After the initial cut and bite- thus rewarding those hungry taste buds- the dryness of this impulse buy finally sets in. Yup, the toasted brown bird that sat under the light (for hours) now sits in the fridge for days drying out even more. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get a chicken sandwich for lunch the next day out of the deal, but no one seems to want the chicken after the initial satiation is filled fueled by the delectable AROMA.

We are not alone in the cult-chicken following. Rumor has it that Costco sells 157,000 of these birds A DAY! And that’s just Cosco. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe everyone else is satisfied with their chickens. Maybe it’s just me.

I rarely intend to buy an already cooked chicken when I go shopping, especially when I KNOW it will dry out quickly. A couple years ago, I went to Kauai to get Married! I didn’t Intend to see chickens there either. But there they were – everywhere!

Even though I didn’t intend to see chickens they were a nice touch to a beautiful island! And my son would always ask them as they stared blankly at him,”What DO you want?” I’m sure their intent was food and maybe attention.

Act as if what you intend to manifest in life is already a reality. Eliminate thoughts of conditions, limitations, or the possibility of it not manifesting. If left undisturbed in your mind and in the mind of intention simultaneously, it will germinate in the physical world.

Wayne Dyer

Deepok says that whatever you intend to do or say or accomplish, you must SAY IT IN WORDS:

Intentions compressed into words enfold magical power.
- Deepak Chopra

So if intention is so important as Wayne Dyer and others always professed, why we’re the unintended things so prevalent? Is it simply because we forgot to set an intention? If my intention at the store was to only buy sustainable food, I would have never bought it.

So here’s the weird thing, despite (or IN SPITE of?) my dry chicken. Everything I’ve intended in the last year, worked out in a completely different way- key word- WORKED OUT. I won’t go so far as to say, everything happens for a reason, but shizz does happen.

Now here’s a strange twist. I’m not a regular Bible reader but I flipped open my dusty Bible tonight and it landed in 2 Samuel: 19 which mentioned INTENT! I googled Samuel 2 to try to find out what it was about and found this reference in another WordPress blog: Mcburnett’s Musings. Weird. Right next door.

Mephibosheth, in the Bible, was a great grandson of King Saul. He was dropped by a nurse when he was 5 while they were fleeing a battle. It left him crippled. He lived in Exile to avoid being slane until the king sent for him. He was nervous, thinking he was surely dead meat now.

His intention was to just stay alive.

“He repeatedly referred to himself as a dead dog – not a worthless dog, not a despicable dog, but as a dead dog”.

But the King (David) welcomed him, like the prodigal son, inviting him to his table. McBurnett summed it up with this:

☩ We are born into the king’s household.
☩ We were created in his image, just a little lower than the angels.
☩ We suffered a fall from which we cannot recover.
☩  We are saddled with human weakness to which we fall victim. Given our human tendencies, we repeatedly fall below our own expectations and intentions. Our heritage and lineage explains our behavior, but it does not excuse it.
☩ We live in exile. Our father intended for us to dwell in the palace, but because of ancestors’ behavior, we have been cast out and must deal with the consequences. David raised the question, “What of Jonathan’s descendants?” and Jesus raised the question “What of Abraham’s descendants?”
☩ We are redeemed by the grace of Jesus/God, as Mephibosheth was redeemed by the grace of David.
☩ We are in hiding. Like Adam, we hide our shame from God. We are afraid of the judgment to come. Meanwhile, God is seeking us like the lost sheep or lost coin.
☩ The king does not want to find us for punishment, but for redemption.
☩ The king wants us to feast at his table forever.- Mcburnetts musings.

Yes, that went deep quickly. That wasn’t where I was going to go with this post. I feel like I was led around the pasture by the reins. Maybe someone needed to hear it. My takeaway is that sometimes our intentions aren’t God’s intentions for us. I know beyond truth, that my intentions for how I wanted my life to go, didn’t work out and I’m grateful for that! My intention yesterday, when I walked into the store, was not to lose my wallet, but I did. When I realized it had fallen out, I quickly turned around the corner and saw my shopping list bouncing away. My wallet was nowhere to be found. It was never turned in at all. After canceling all the cards and mourning the injustice of it, today I had the freedom and the money (on another credit card that I didn’t have to cancel yesterday) to buy a new wallet. It’s not the same as my loss- then stolen wallet, which I LOVED the design and have kept for over 4 years, but I was able to do it.

Blessings.

Tonight, I’m sitting at the King’s table- ya know- my husband’s; with my oven-roasted chicken in a plastic-covered case, looking vat my Kauai chicken mug, and I couldn’t be more grateful that all is well for the moment. 🐔🐓🐔🐓

The Path Forward

I must love the analogy of a road.

Stretching out in the horizon. The path beyond seeing. The unknown just waiting for me to arrive to its party. Characters awaiting backstage to act out their best performance.

Then hiding behind the curtain to see my reaction. Everyone wants a show. The sparkly draw of drama, anger in its raw-est form. The ego on full display. Pain with lots of tears. The journalists love a pained heart. To bring out emotion from a torn soul makes for a great story that leaves people angry and quickly searching for who’s to blame. Then there’s the empty souls who are jealous of what passion is evoked out of this pain. How could someone care so much about anything? They shake their head in bewilderment, as they go back to their monotone life, not realizing that their bewilderment is their passion. They are playing out their part perfectly. The neutral, apathetic but always in control stagehand.

Everywhere I go I take a picture of roads.

It must mean I’m leaving all the stress and worry of the past behind.

It must mean that I have hope.

Hope in humanity. Hope in Love. Hope that someday I’ll get to a place where my hurt heart is settled on a comfy soft pillow and resting in bliss that today it will be alright. Today there won’t be any “what- ifs” or “what was’s”. That today I won’t ruminate on the past. Of loss, lost memories, people, places that tear at heartstrings. 

Rarely have I taken a picture in my rear-view mirror. So why does my brain live there?

Why do I insist on dwelling on what I don’t have? As a mom of little toddlers, if I gave them a treat or a toy and they threw it on the ground in a fit of whiney anger, did I keep giving them more to to try to appease them?

Maybe.

Once or twice. But soon I realized that they would never be happy with anything until I fixed the real problem.

Are you hungry? Sad? Tired?

Until WE fix what is bothering us right now, we can never be at peace.

“But!” you plead, “it’s not ME! If only xyz would do xyz THEN I could be happy.” Logically we know we can’t control another. Logically we know we are being puppets to their story. We are acting out as the victim, then the villain, then the hero. We want to be the star of our own story. We want to wrap up the ending with “and they lived happily ever after”.

God how we want that!!! Our heart soars at the possibility of that happening. The human Spirit in action. The human spirit of survival. It’s what kept little babies alive when supposedly they were born and mom couldn’t take care of them they could follow the Linea nigra: a dark line stretching from the top of the pubic hair to the belly button, sometimes extending to the breast, so babies could find the milk filled nipples.

Holly Clark/Stocksy

Might be an old wives tail but maybe the road in all my pictures represent a linea nigra. My lifeline to HOPE.

I once asked an elderly housekeeper in the hospital where I worked what it was that got her up everyday. She had loads of energy and never complained. She told me, “It’s the curiosity of what each new day bring”. Wow. How can I be that willing? That curious? How can I forge- forward without fear?

Right now I’m at the crest of the hill. The very farthest point you can see in the picture. I’m hopeful. Nervous curious. Wanting. Craving peace. That peace is different for everyone. It might be a problem solved. A Love resolved. A bill paid off. Or it might be coming to terms with what is.

Here’s my collection of What if’s. My roads to hope. Followed by Jack Canfield’s advice to keep being present as life unfolds.

JACK CANFIELD

Think of a car driving through the night. The headlights only
go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make
it all the way from California to New York driving through
the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred
feet. And that's how life tends to unfold before us. If we just
trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that,
and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, your
life will keep unfolding. And it will eventually get you to
the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you
want it.