My world of yesterday was a world of comfort.

I knew who I was and what I was to do. Expectations were clear for me and I knew what to expect from the others in my life. But things are different now. I have grown. As an adult I grow as a person. This may not be as easily identifiable to the people in my life. They may see a few changes on the outside. But much of the change has been an inside job, only visible to someone looking at my heart.

 How do I make it through this time you ask? For if we are really living life; we will go from one state of change to another. There will be times of settling in, but these will again lead to more change.

Don’t make major decisions when you are tired. When you are tired the good is too good and the bad is too bad. Rest brings objectivity.
Have an accountability person in your life, and expect them to hold you to the goals you have set previously.
Continue to reevaluate and measure goals against “life values”. Although goals will change, “life values” will not. These will act as a compass in the midst of whatever may come your way.

Remember that whether your opportunities were chosen or thrust upon you, it is not so much what happens to us but what happens in us that matters.

 The better the change…the worse we tend to feel about any feelings that aren’t “all good.” In fact, often we just want to bypass or detour this part of the journey. However, a detour won’t take it off your map, because to fully embrace the future, the past must find its home.

 In going forward, there is always leaving behind. There is a part of you that is now only a memory, as the new you goes on. This “feeling” is completely normal, and although often uncomfortable, we all experience this “grieving” when dealing with significant change…even the good stuff.

The leaves are quite different, much narrower, and prolific and stand up higher; but again these pull out fairly easily and make great bouquets for small children wanting to please their mother.

”So what,” you are wondering. I just reach over and pull the weeds out, it isn’t a big deal. However, all weeds are not created equal! After these come another much closer to the ground. They look like small roses, tolerate extreme heat and little rain, thriving even when all the grass has given up. Just try just pulling these out…good luck. Just as there are seasons in the plant world, so there are seasons in my life. As much as I work towards life balance, there are periods of time when there will be an abundance of opportunities.

When we moved into our new house several years ago we chose to clear the back portion of our property ourselves wanting to create a lush Florida friendly yard…our version of Sunken Gardens.

The first year I had mixed results. We had these beautiful lavender flowers on a stalk that somewhat resembled a sunflower. Going for the natural look, I left them excited about the beauty that was already available on my developing sanctuary. However when the black and yellow caterpillars began to strip my “snow on the mountain” down to bare stems, I have to say I wasn’t near as tolerant, spraying them with incredibly toxic substances and celebrating as they dropped off.

The funny thing is that the lavender flowers turned into these horrible stickers. (Have you ever just wanted to throw the clothes away rather than face the tedious chore of trying to get those things off?) And the bugs that I eliminated were the larvae for the butterflies I had wanted to attract. I had gotten so caught up in the ugliness of stripped plants; I had eliminated my opportunities to see the beauty that could have come.

The funny thing about weeds is that what one person might consider a weed, another person might plant. And where some gardeners hate and spray for insects others plant to attract them.   Yet what defines something as prized or rejected is not necessarily the thing itself, but the viewer.

Weeds #2: The Bugs Are Back! —>

Well, I am incredibly fortunate to have phenomenal coaches, counselors and accountability people in my life…however there was this one thing that had been nagging at me for a couple months. I had all this material; I was wading through it, but just couldn’t seem to find a common thread…voila…an hour with a friend earlier this week made it all seem so simple and so obviously apparent.

If you don’t have someone in your life who can give you objective feedback from a point of some expertise…find someone who does it well, whatever it is. Spend time with them; give them permission to give you feedback and to hold you accountable to follow through on your discussion.

Life changes when I do!

Joy Beyond Freedom is a Journey!

I have realized recently that the reason many people don’t recognize the first step out of balance is because you can’t live by a measure you don’t have. You can not recognize that your priorities are blurring if you have never fully identified what your real priorities are. Priorities have to do with the things you most value, not the most recent crises you think you must solve.

Pretend for a few moments that there are no fires to put out. Take a few minutes, and make a list of the relationships and people that are most important to you.  Write down the activities that most energize you and give you the most joy. How do you feel about the quality of your life? Are you able to operate at a maximized physical condition for yourself, and if not, why?

Making life changes is not about getting it All right. This road involves opportunities. You will fall. To believe you won’t is unrealistic. However, babies don’t quit walking the first time they fall, they just have to keep getting up until they get it right.

 Are you living life or is life living you? Do you spend a lot of time running from one fire to the next, so busy taking care of “have to” that you don’t remember what a “want to” looks like? Find out what the measure for your life is. Find out the things that you would die for and then live for them. That is Joy…Beyond Freedom!

What quality do you share with the fastest runner in the world?

What gift do you possess that every successful artist requires?

…TIME…

At my High school reunion a wise friend said to me “20 years equalizes many things.”

Every day the clock strikes Midnight, and a new day begins.  Each person has the next 24 hours to call today, that won’t change.  The way we spend those hours and minutes is what separates us from each other.  No matter how we try, the day is the day. Time cannot be saved for tomorrow, it cannot be traded among friends, and once it is gone, it is gone! Ask yourself “At the end of the day, will I be frustrated with the way I spent my day, or will I be satisfied that it was a day well spent?”

Some people believe you only need to go faster to make “it” happen. They’re wrong.  Fractured families, stress induced disease, and mental breakdowns, are at the end of that road.  What can we do?

Take it one action step at a time. First identify priorities, and then focus your goals to reflect those priorities.  If this is done on a regular basis, when you ask yourself “was today a good day?” you will have a measuring stick.  Remember Bill Gates, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa, have accomplished great things, with the same 24 hours that you and I have.

I can’t live in the past or change one moment of it, and neither can I live in the future. Although intellectually that all makes sense, what I know in my brain may not be truth for my heart. Sometimes I am so busy scurrying towards the future I miss NOW. I miss the beauty of the Florida sun shining on Tampa Bay. So I am working and I don’t have the day off to go play in it, that doesn’t mean I cease to recognize its existence.

Or maybe the pain in my past has been so great that each day I wake with it right in front of me. The wounds still so fresh, that each person I talk to reminds me of my pain. Although time presents me with a tomorrow, I cannot see mine for the yesterday in which I live.

Great achievements come from men and women who understand living in Now. There may be pain in my past, but that is my history not my future. My future may be bright, but it is not NOW. My TIME is MY LIFE. This is it. I do not get a do over for this time around. This is not dress rehearsal. The curtain is up and the show continues whether I choose to run off the stage or not. So I will look at my history, my experience of yesterday to help me plan for tomorrow. But I will choose to be present…I will choose to live in today.

Bob, an uncle tells a story of laying pipe within a nuclear power plant. In their calculations, they would measure off of a pencil dot. As a supervisor, he spoke to the men of “centering” off that point. A younger worker insisted that they “were centered”…Bob let it go…sometimes your staff learns best by experience. Although it was only the outside edge of that point, several hundred yards later that equaled almost an inch…in a nuclear plant that is a lot!

”Vacation habits” like souvenirs of summer, love to “stow away” in my day to day activities. Unless I am vigilant and periodically take inventory…it could be Christmas before I notice. So every so often, I revisit my goals and action plans to see if I am still on track.

Hidden in my daily routine are the secrets to whether I am successful or not. Periodically, tune your instrument, calibrate the thermostat…take an inventory. When I am where I am not supposed to be, I am vulnerable to bad choices and quick fix solutions…the lotto is never the answer to “bad” money management habits, just as the vending machine is not a good answer to a missed meal.

Other times we know exactly what to do, but for some reason are immobilized to make that change. Maybe we are overwhelmed by the sheer amount of changes we might need to make to successfully navigate whatever challenge we might be facing. Maybe we just don’t have the strength to make that giant leap. Maybe it really is “their” fault. Maybe the marketplace has changed.

As hard as I have tried to change others during the course of my lifetime, I have finally resigned myself to the fact that I CAN NOT make anyone else change. Admittedly it would be a whole lot easier if everyone else would just step into line. However, since that isn’t about to happen much of the change in my world has had to start with me. I have had to change the way I think of things. This last summer I spent some time contemplating the transformation of caterpillars.

To a caterpillar even pebbles look big. Yet some huge butterflies soar above my roofline, while others migrate across continents. Amazing!

When I draw my circle and focus on “what changes can I make” I take back control of my life. And the funny thing is that although I can not make anyone change, when I change and begin to move forward in my life it creates a vacuum behind me that brings others along on the journey.

Today…what one change can I make in any given area that would make the most difference? Because My life changes when I do!

Many contemplate freedom as some incredible destination. But beyond freedom, what then? The journey is about enjoying the trip to freedom, about the changes we make along the way, and about “what then”. What happens when we get there and what comes next?

“It’s about change!”

In a culture that gets microseconds faster daily, many times we can, so we do, bypass the wait. We drive-up, drive through, and instant message. Cutting and copying our way through life, we fast forward through commercials to find that all our time saving devices still leave us short at the end of the day. For although old-fashioned oatmeal only takes 3 minutes in the microwave and will maintain blood sugar levels for hours, we go for the short lived instant version.

Always wanting what’s in front of us, we race through life. Running, then waiting, then running again. Then one day when we wake up, we realize that a good portion of life has passed, and what we waited so long for never actually arrived. We discover that what we wanted was really somewhere along the roadside “back there”. In our “direct route” we missed a turn. No GPS recalculated our life telling us to make a u-turn at the next available intersection.

Old people remembering what it was to be young, married couples forever trying to recapture the thrill and romance of the courtship and parents replaying bittersweet memories of baby drool and cries in the night as they all remember how often they were too busy.

A winner is not made at the end of the race. It is days and weeks and even years of daily routines. The end of the race only reflects the winning. The secret of the winner lies in his daily routine and so does the secret of all success. Crossing the line first does not guarantee a victory.

Life is in the Living! Live it with Intent!

Imagine you went on vacation…where would you go and what would you see…in your own backyard?

Crises: figurative a point at which a change must come, either for better or worse; deciding event

In my life I identified a moment, when a change needed to happen. That change would take place in me, however initially I had no idea what this change would look like. I am still walking this process out, but day be day the components of this change become more evident. For many people I work with, this moment, this epiphany of “something has to give” is what they would call a crises.

 Crisis is not generally a conscious choice. However, once there, the very definition of crises indicates the necessity of choice. This “choice” is where the opportunity lies. Will I choose the easiest way, will that be the best choice for me? Or will I choose to do the hard things?

 Mothers Against Drunk Driving…The Amber Alert… The National Kidney Foundation… Easter Seals… Alcoholics Anonymous… Susan G. Komen for the Cure… Organ donors “leave a life that keeps on living.” Only a few of the choices made.

 Each one of us will face points in which change must come. Will our choices be mired in our own pain? Or can one person, one decision at a time make a difference?

LLSA Chamber of Commerce
Nominee Small Business Rookie of the Year 2008 & 2009

Venice Chamber of Commerce
Nominee Small Business of the Year 2009

In January 2009 Awarded Appreciation for Outstanding Service
Eager Beaver Award January 2009

Could there really be a healthy and safe way out?

You were in a terrible relationship. You worked up the nerve to leave, yet why do you still feel so bad?

You have the perfect family, a great job and to everyone looking in from the outside, it couldn’t be better. Why do you still feel something is missing?

Living a life of joy is really possible, and is not confined to perfect circumstances. Plenty of people have plenty of money yet money, an abundance of personal time, or even the perfect life partner doesn’t guarantee happiness.