Mind-icine

The first sign of a cold inspires concern, but what about the thoughts of despair that come with it?  If our thoughts create our reality, maybe it's time to nurture them the same way we do our bodies... there are some to nurse back to health, some we to get rid of, and some that  just need a cast and some time.  I was trying to figure out how to take care of these things that are created in my mind... how do I keep my head in check?  There are so many things I hear from people each day that become thoughts... and many times they are harmful. 

 In the words of Robert Burns:

 "I pick my favourite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence." 

I have decided, (in Lauraland), that quotes are the equivalent of medicine for the mind. They can help heal negative thoughts, change thoughts that are harmful to the spirit and help create new thoughts that inspire.  I mean, it may seem cheesy, but you just can't think or hear too many good things, in fact maybe we aren't hearing enough.  I have found that it's healthy to make sure we are supplementing our daily intake with enough positive thoughts to meet the happy requirement, which in my humble opinion is infinite.  I guess this blog with the line I find each day, is my own form of a daily vitamin for my thoughts... keeping my thoughts healthy, bright and active!  So for today, rather than just using one line, I'm giving a power dose of multi-quotes for the day...  a mental immune booster :-)  Think up!! (Like drink up, but also think up, as in think positive, do you get it?... *joke credit to Lelia Broussard, hehe) 


"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving”~ Albert Einstein

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."~ Buddha

"Fear is a darkroom where negatives develop."~ Usman B. Asif

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves."~ Carl Jung

"You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing and grace before I dip the pen in the ink. "~ G.K. Chesterton

"First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination." ~ Napoleon Hill


"Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness."~ James Thurber

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." ~M. Scott Peck

"Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die."~ Dwight D. Eisenhower


"Develop an attitude of gratitude, and give thanks for everything that happens to you, knowing that every step forward is a step toward achieving something bigger and better than your current situation. "~ Brian Tracy
"The day, water, sun, moon, night - I do not have to purchase these things with money."~ Plautus


"Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing."~ Arundhati Roy

"Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude." ~ Denis Waitley

"I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge -- myth is more potent than history -- dreams are more powerful than facts -- hope always triumphs over experience -- laughter is the cure for grief -- love is stronger than death."~ Robert Fulghum


"Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be."~ Barack Obama

"Wherever you are, be there totally. If you find your here and now intolerable and it makes you unhappy, you have three options: remove yourself from the situation, change it, or accept it totally."~ Eckhart Tolle



"You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty."~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed."~ Corita Kent

"People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success."~ Norman Vincent Peale

"You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore."~ Christopher Columbus


"I am somebody. I am me. I like being me. And I don't need anybody to make me somebody."~ Louis L'Amore


"To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . is to set our own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them."~ Ralph Waldo Emerson


"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there!"~ Will Rogers


"Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable."~ Wizard of Oz

"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."~ Ben Sweetland

"You block your dream when you allow your fear to grow bigger than your faith."~ Mary Manin Morrissey



Today's (kind of musical) Silver Lining(s):

"Don’t waste your time on jealousy, sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind, the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself."

"Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, Maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. What ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either, Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s."

"Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. "

"Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them."

"Do not read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly."


"Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life, the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t." 
 
"Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young." Everybody's Free~ Baz Luhrmann 

The Yin and Some Yang

I tend to be an extreme person...to me, lukewarm is not pleasing to the pallet.  I rarely find a middle ground, I'm all in or all out... black as night or snowy white.  As I continue on my journey and learn and grow, I find balance is one of my biggest struggles, in life and yoga.

In yoga it always amazes me how everyone in the room seems to just stand in tree pose like it's second nature as I squish my face and clinch my teeth attempting not to fall. Wheel pose, triangle, even crow have become easier, but class after class I dread the portion of balance I teeter my way through, shaking, falling and laughing at my predicament, wondering if I'll ever find my center.

Life is no different, I attempt to find a balance between my nomadic, gypsy ways, and my cancer side with it's domestic nature... between my hermit and my social butterfly... between my raw organic diet and in n out... between being right and being wrong... between having a plan and having faith.  I've realized the more I expand in one direction, the more I am pulled in the other as well, and the broader the spectrum, the more points there are to test when searching for this point of peace.

The thing is, as balance is found in one area, the other is redistributed, causing a shift and wobble there... but I've decided even balance needs a balance!  There needs to be that wobble or shift to recognize when balance is found... or lost. So as I sway on in my ongoing challenge of trying balance my divinity with my humanity, (and my tree pose), I allow myself some room to fall, wobble, and repeat as needed :-)

Today's Silver Lining:

"Yin yang, menos es más, (less is more), polos opuestos que nunca se juntan, (opposites that never meet), yin yang, vienen y van, (come and go), líneas paralelas que nunca se cruzan, ( parallel lines that never intersect), bien mal, (pretty bad), madera o metal, (wood or metal), puntos de vista que no se preguntan, (views that do not ask), tal cuál, (so what), azúcar o sal, (sugar or salt), los que se oyen pero no se escuchan, (the ones that are heard but themselves do not listen), yin yang, Eva y Adán, (Adam and Eve ), desequilibrio por una manzana, (disequilibrium with an apple)."  Yin Yang- by Jarabe De Palo

I AM Because WE ARE

Tonight I watched an inspiring, and very humbling documentary, "I Am Because We Are."  Though it was set in Malawi, amongst poverty and a severe HIV/AIDS epidemic, it wasn't just about sickness or lack... it was about change and hope and the similarities we all have to experience life. 

As I watched the images that matched the statistic that there are over 1 million orphaned children in a country of 12 million, it was hard, sad and disturbing.  Seeing the parents of these young children dying of AIDS, and for others, watching their children die or suffer, was not something that can be watched without some type of emotion... I went through sorrow, anger, frustration, compassion, but ended with hope and some sense of understanding.

Through the various stories, I found that many of the fears or struggles they described were very similar to mine and those around me.  Many of the solutions they offered also seemed fitting... one that stood out being the fact that you cannot change that which you don't accept, you can only change what you accept.  So is it a failure to admit you have a problem, or to not take responsibility for it?  They spoke of people playing the victim, rather than taking responsibility for their situation, and their ability to change it and that resiliency is a universal concept, it isn’t something that one child has and another does not, they are strengths inside each and every one of us.

One of my favorite things was how it states that there are ways to heal the world, there are ways each of us can help, but you have to find your own way... which I feel to be true, there is not one right answer.  I know I feel like my part in spreading love changes each day, and I feel blessed for the fact that I have found as many ways to do that as I have.  It doesn't have to be a huge undertaking to make a big impact on those around you, and ultimately in your own life.

Enough of my commentary, I could go on all day, here is the website to check out more if you please...

iambecauseweare.com

Much love : )





Today's Silver Lining:

"Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds.  Have no fear for atomic energy, 'Cause none of them can stop the time.  How long shall they kill our prophets, While we stand aside and look? Ooh!Some say it's just a part of it: We've got to fulfill the book.  Won't you help to sing This songs of freedom-'Cause all I ever have: Redemption songs."  Redemption Song- by Bob Marley

Home Sweet Home

I have been living the life of a gypsy... and I keep forgetting where I live.  I've been in LA a bunch, and Vegas hasn't set in, but Florida will always be my first love.  There are many places I feel like I could just stay forever when I'm there, or places I've never been that have the feeling of home.  At the moment, I'm grateful to be able to fly from one location to the next, always being right at home. 
It is said, "Home is where the heart is."  I have found that to be true... places I feel the most at home are sometimes the furthest away geographically, but where I feel connected on a deeper level... sometimes they are places I'd least expect, a party, a store, the ocean. Anywhere can feel like home when the heart is there, when you are able to feel in the moment that you're right where you belong...
However, sometimes the place where your stuff is, where you have your own space, pay bills, and unpack can be really great as well... even if it doesn't quite feel like home.

Today's Silver Lining:

"I've got my memories always inside of me, But I can't go back, Back to how it was, I believe you now, I've come too far, No I can't go back, Back to how it was, Created for a place I've never known, This is home, Now I'm finally, Where I belong."  This is Home- by Switchfoot

Words

The less you are bound by what you know, the more active you can be in learning what you need to understand in each moment.  Words can teach, explain, communicate and label... but they can also limit what is.  They can hold judgements and bound us by what they once were attached to or associated with... they can prevent us from expanding upon what is, by remembering what was.  They are necessary in a so many ways, but silence is also a very powerful communicator, one that can explain so much.  Balance of the two is a hard thing to find in this busy world, but always available within our own.
There are those moments where infinite knowledge is exposed in the depths of this silence of mind, where there are core truths that come into awareness... these come through inside, resonate inside, explain inside, and leave a small nugget in words... the memory can't contain what it learned, the mind can't think what it saw, the ego can't teach what it wants... but the soul has evolved into what it is... and we are then it's messenger.


Today's Silver Lining:


By the time I recognize this moment, This moment will be gone, But I will bend the light, pretend that it somehow lingered on, Well all I got's, Ooh ooh ooh ooh.  And I will wait to find, If this will last forever, And I will wait to find
If this will last forever, And I will pay no mind, When it won't and it won't because it can't, It just can't, It's not supposed to."  Clarity- by John Mayer

Life, Love and the Pursuit of Happiness

Sometimes it is easy to spend so much time, so many thoughts, so many words, and so little faith in the pursuit of happiness.  Planning, wishing, hoping, dreaming, doubting it's long awaited arrival... then it seems as soon as exhaustion sets in and the search is suspended, it shows up all on it's own.  

Yet somehow, regardless of this repeated proof... it still seems so hard to just let it be, and know that it is simply the absence of a search which seek.  It is a moment which is never the same, and always here.

 Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne

Today's Silver Lining:

"I have kissed honey lips, Felt the healing in her fingertips, It burned like fire, This burning desire.  I have spoke with the tongue of angels, I have held the hand of a devil, It was warm in the night, I was cold as a stone.  But I still haven't found, What I'm looking for, But I still haven't found, What I'm looking for."  I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For- by U2

Moving Forth on the 4th

Letting go is hard to do, but everywhere you're going is made up of little steps... in order to get there you have to take each one.

So rather than standing around thinking of how to get from here to there, I am choosing to walk on...

Today's Silver Lining:

"Step by step oh baby, gonna get to you girl.  Step by step, oh yeah, really want you in my world."  Step by Step- by New Kids On the Block