Yes, Vicky...an awesome song and singer~

...thank you for sharing

Relax and enjoy life's journey

Every day you're bombarded with an ever-increasing number of opportunities, yet you don't seem to have enough time to get things done.  If that isn't enough, you believe you're not working quickly enough to keep up with the nonstop flow of information streaming out of your computer. Worse yet, you feel as if you'll be left in the dust if you don't keep up. 

The truth is, there will never be enough time to get everything done, so, don't kill yourself trying.

You can face overwhelming challenges, yet still make each day purposeful by keeping in mind a clear intention of what you want to do.  Resolve to stay focused on accomplishing important tasks. Be willinging to say 'No' when you are asked to add responsibilities that are not in harmony with your aspirations.

Life is not meant to be a struggle but a balance and joyful journey.

 [ send green star]

That is so true, Nancy!   Remember this song?

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Perhaps one of the simplest ways to change the outlook of oneself is to be reminded of all the good things in your life.  Reflecting on how far you have come, what you have already accomplished, and what you have learned, can be very encouraging.

Appreciating your dearest friends, your closest family members, and yourself can be a smile on your face.

If you need a lift or an attitude adjustment, try to appreciate and reflect on the good things.  Count your blessings.  It can be done anytime and any place.

 [ send green star]

Whether phrased as "push your buttons," "get your goat," "get you riled up," or "annoy you," it's no fun to be on the receiving end. How to cope?

1. Don't take it personally. Even when someone criticizes your actions or demeans your very nature, know that they are merely directing their inner turmoil in your direction. Someone else's opinion of you is mostly irrelevant, and basically none of your business. Don't assume that there is any validity to an accusation. Perhaps there is a valuable lesson buried inside the unkindness that merits objective consideration, but negative emotions are best just quickly discarded.

2. Look to the positive people in your life for support. If you balance many positive and supportive friends against one or two negative influences, it is much easier to cope. If you don't currently have enough positive people in your life, begin a focused effort to add positive people to your inner circle. If you don't have personal connections, search for groups of positive people at MeetUp.com

3. Remove negative people from your life. Yes you can, even if it's your boss. You don't need that job so much that it's worth your health or happiness. Everything in life is a choice. Sometimes making a change is important, while other times just knowing that you hold the power to make a different choice is enough.

4. Forgive the offender, not for their sake, but for your own sake. The act of forgiving releases your anger and provides space for rational thinking and action.

5. Be grateful for the wake-up call. Any time that someone or something grabs your attention is a good time to be grateful - even if the message is unpleasant. Something is happening that requires your conscious awareness. Perhaps you have a lesson to learn or an action to take. Perhaps it is time to remove another negative influence from your life.

6. Release any expectations that the unkind person should have acted differently. Life is not fair, and you only cause yourself unhappiness if you hold an expectation that life or any individual should be fair or kind.

Jonathan Lockwood Huie

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While some of us wear our emotions on our sleeve, others keep feelings bottled up for decades. Strike a balance. If you are suffering with unexpressed frustration or grief, let the tears flow. Then find a friend to laugh with. Laughter,  lightens the saddest moments and bonds us to family and friends.

 [ send green star]

Rainbows and butterflies are themselves beautiful and highly symbolic, but they are also representative of all the small miracles of our life - the little things that are so easy to overlook, yet so awe inspiring when we take a moment to notice and to pay attention.

Give thanks for the rainbows, for the butterflies, for all God's creatures - large and small, for the bright blue sky and the soft fog and the gentle rain, for the tree veiled in the season's first frost, for the baby's laugh, for the touch of a hand and the whispered "I love you."

 "Rainbows & Butterflies" are the squirrels chasing each other around the apple tree, the deer and her fawn who visit us for the apples, the magnificent hawk who swoops low through our yard, the sea otters at play on the beach, the ungainly yet graceful and serene manatees that once came to swim with us.

Consider these "Rainbows & Butterflies"

a gentle kiss

a baby's smile

the voice on the telephone that says "I'm glad you called."

the gentle whisper from the other side of the bed, "sweet dreams. I love you."

a song that touches our heart - whether a sad song, a song of love, or a polka

raindrops on leaves

brightly colored glass

a bird in flight

a basketful of kittens

a gentle fog

a sunset

a roaring fire

roasting marshmallows

the season's first dusting of snow

fruit and vegetables picked with our own hand

Exercise: What are my "Rainbows & Butterflies?" How often am I conscious of the small miracles that happen right before my eyes? How might my life be more Joyful if I adopted the practice of a daily Celebration of my "Rainbows & Butterflies?" How might that Celebration look?

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It is never too late to be what you might have been.

- George Eliot

George Eliot was the pen name of English novelist Mary Anne Evans (1819-1880)

What is age but a number. What you can dream, you can become, at any age.

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If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
- Mother Teresa

Let today be a day of acceptance, compassion, and understanding. Let us feel our bond of humanity with each of our planet's six billion souls. Put aside color, geography, wealth, education, political and religious beliefs, and feel the throb of each human heart in your heart. Never let your compassionate connection with all creation be limited by your politics, your language, or your traditions. Know that the spirit transcends all cultural differences and embraces all creation.

 [ send green star]

"I set my own course through the ocean of life."
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Have you ever watched a school of fish? They move almost as one. Instantly, they all turn. It doesn't appear that the fish in front turn and then the others follow. Rather, the fish at the back of the school turn together with those in front as if the school were a single organism.

Often, groups of people behave like schools of fish. Beliefs, behaviors, and habits spring up almost organically. Some of these trends are short lived like the latest clothing fashion, while others persist for millennia, yet have no more fundamental significance than a school of fish turning left or right in unison.

Be alert and watchful to avoid basing your own life on the beliefs, behaviors, and habits of those around you, however familiar and expected those habits may be.

 [ send green star]

Someone mentioned to be about a bird  "Bad Hair Heron." Ever had a bad hair day - a day when everything seemed to be going wrong? Perhaps today is a day to soothe your ruffled feathers, take a deep breath, and reaffirm that the weight of the world is really not on your shoulders, unless you choose to assume that burden.

 [ send green star]

All dreams and aspirations start with a thought.  Thoughts may come to life gradually but those small thoughts are the beginning of something great.  With time, your thoughts turn in to dreams and those dreams turn in to visions.  Visions become the blue print for your life's aspirations and goals.

Your greatest achievements will always take place in the framework of your vision.  So, it's essential to think big, dream big, and visualize big.

If you expand your thinking and your thoughts, your dreams and visions will grow to great proportions.   And, when they do--hold on.

 [ send green star]

Three little words, but a world of wisdom. Behind that simple saying is both the call to live in the moment and also to live consciously.

Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if our thoughts are focused on regretting the past, preoccupied with anticipating the future, or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.

Ram Dass

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Visualize living a life of grace. What kind of life do you picture? The word "grace" derives from a Latin word that means both pleasing and thankful,  that paints a picture of a life lived with grace. A life filled with gratitude for life itself. A life that is joyful and that inspires joy in others. A life of grace is a great life.  Choose to live a life of gratitude and joy.

 [ send green star]

Did you know that the average child laughs 400 times a day.  If laughter seems like a distance memory, then it's time the child inside came out to play.

In reality, you have so much more to enoy that the child you used to be--and so any reasons to laugh.  You have that vast library of memories to be brought out and explored--years of joy, adventure, and smiles.  There are mistakes filed away--all good reason for laughter.  There's accumulation of friendship--full of hugs, love and good times.  There's that treasure chest of experience to be dipped into--and so much more meant to bring a chuckle!

And finally, never to be overlooked, there's that secret inner deposit of excitement, wonder, enthusiasm and confidence in all the good times yet to come!

 [ send green star]

'Focus on the joy'

How many things in your daily life do you do just for the joy of it?

When you do something just for the 'joy' of it you are not worried about what you get in return, nor do you do it because you 'should' or 'have-to'.  You do it because you want to.

As you infuse your life with this kind of joy, you internalize the message that you cherish, love and respect yourself. Your self-esteem, self-confidence and self-worth all get a boost because you're doing things that are important to you.

Do something just for the 'joy' of it.  When you experience joy, others around you feel it too!

 [ send green star]

You're not alone in the  journey of life

There's not a single person in the world that hasn't had to struggle over something or overcome difficulties at one point in their life. 

Perhaps at this moment you may be facing one, whether it is related to money, health, children, partners, family, careers.  It's all part of being alive.

Recognize the obstacles are part of the journey.  Don't let it stop you, and never give up.  Instead, think of them as milestones that once passed, will bring you closer to your goals.

Remember that with every challenge passed, you're stronger, a little wiser, and prepared for the rest of your  journey.

 [ send green star]

Conscious positive focus unfolds in three stages:
In the first stage you focus on clarifying what you really want. When you get clear on your five ‘death-bed’ goals, for example, you enjoy clarity about your direction that you didn’t have before. You also focus on spotting the patterns of unconscious fullfillments that are driving the selfdestructive forces in your life.

In the second stage you develop the art of loving things as they are. This step is crucial, because only love is big enough to embrace all the seeming mistakes of the past and the bumps along the way to visualize all your heart’s desires.

In the third stage you move easefully through the world, enjoying the spontaneous appearance of seemingly miraculous surprises and gifts. You focus on fine-tuning your view of the world so you can fulfill things easefully.

We’ve focused on stage one—now let’s focus on stage two—loving things exactly as they are.

The Key Insight:
Even the most troublesome patterns change when you love and accept them just the way they are.

The Key Move:
When you notice something you want to change, first love and accept it just as it is.

Those are such strange ideas that you will perhaps find it difficult to grasp them, even for a flickering moment, when you first discovered them. But they work, and often they’re the only things that work. When you'rs really scared, for example, the only thing that dissolves your fear is remembering to acknowledge and accept it. Often our old unconscious programming tells us to try to get rid of  fear. Every cell in your body may be screaming “I don’t want to be afraid!,” but the fear just keeps getting bigger. Then  remember to overcome the fear, and it dissolves into ease.

 [ send green star]

One of the easiest ways for you to increase your energy and passion is to surround yourself with friends that are energetic and passionate.  When you're around those that are positive and upbeat, it helps you. They are the ones with qualities.   This is the kind of friend you want to create close relationships with - to spend more time with. 

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So many of us have untouched opportunities inside that we would be amazed at not only our capabilities but the joy that tapping them brings!   Look at Grandma Moses.....she didn't begin writing until well advanced in age.

Painting

Moses began painting in her seventies after abandoning a career in embroidery because of arthritis. Louis J. Caldor, a collector, discovered her paintings in a Hoosick Falls, New York drugstore window in 1938. In 1939, an art dealer, Otto Kallir, exhibited some of her work in his Galerie Saint-Etienne in New York. This brought her to the attention of art collectors all over the world, and her paintings were highly sought after. She went on to exhibit her work throughout Europe and in Japan, where her work was particularly well received. She continued her prolific output of paintings, the demand for which never diminished during her lifetime. Grandma Moses painted mostly scenes of rural life. Some of her many paintings were used on the covers of Hallmark cards.

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Endless possibilities exist for all of us

New decisions and changes are frightening but they can also be exhilarating!

No matter what pressures you're under, what tough decisions you face, keep in mind that it is possible to turn chaos and turmoil into an exciting beginning.

Look at all the options life has to offer.  Ask yourself how those options fit in with your deepest desires.  Whether your desires are intellectual, artistic, spiritual, or physical you can make a decision, to make them into realities.

You will soar over boundaries and recognize that your endless possibilities have no limits.

 [ send green star]