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6 July
2010
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Happy
times and bygone days are never lost. . .
In truth, they grow more
wonderful within
the heart that keeps them.
Kay
Andrew
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weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is
peculiar to him or her, and which, worthily used, will be a gift
to his or her race.
John
Ruskin
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How beautiful
a day can be
when kindness touches it!
George
Elliston
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How I Stopped "Waiting for Jack"
Kristen
Moeller
The first time I met Jack, I ripped a hundred-dollar bill out of
his hand.
On a cold winter day in Denver, I waited in line to see one of my
heroes, Jack Canfield, the coauthor of the best-selling Chicken
Soup for the Soul series
and the author of The
Success Principles: How to Get From Where You Are to Where You
Want to Be.
Where I wanted to be was a version of what Jack had become -- an
author, a speaker, an inspiration to thousands of people. He was
the whole package -- successful, kind -- a visionary for what is
possible in the world. I thought, "If I can get to know him,
I will become that."
When I saw the opportunity, I grabbed it. Literally. During his
presentation, Jack reached for his wallet, pulled out a
hundred-dollar bill, and said, "Who wants this?" Hands
shot up in the audience; people leaned forward to see whom Jack
would choose. But I leapt up, ran up the stairs to the stage, and
grabbed the bill from his hand. As I was launching myself in the
air, thoughts raced through my mind -- was I about to be
humiliated in front of 800 people? Would they call security and
haul me from the stage? But my desire for bold action was louder
than any voice of doubt.
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As
I plucked the bill from his hand, he turned to me and said,
"Yes, that's it! We can't wait around for the opportunities
to come to us. We must take action to create what we want!"
After his talk, I waited in line to formally meet Jack and boldly
asked for his personal e-mail address. Over the next several
months, I sent him lengthy e-mails sharing my vision and dreams.
He kindly e-mailed back one-liners of encouragement such as,
"Keep thinking and playing bigger; it's much more fun that
way. Love, Jack." Then my life got busy with other things. I
lost sight of my inspiration and I stopped e-mailing Jack.
A year later, my dreams had grown stale. I had this idea if I got
back in touch with Jack, he might just provide the perfect,
inspiring nudge I needed. I was looking for something that would
spur me into action, like a giant arrow that would show me the
way.
I emailed him, and then emailed him again -- but got no response.
As I sat down at my computer to check my email for the fifth time
in 15 minutes, I suddenly woke up.
What was I doing?
I was waiting! And this time I was waiting for Jack. I realized
waiting was a behavior that began when I was a little girl. I
waited to be older -- surely freedom would begin when I had my
first boyfriend, first kiss, got my drivers license, graduated
from high school and went to college. Then I waited to know what
to do with my life. I had always waited, thinking the great prize
of life was just around the corner. And I had started to believe
Jack was the answer; that knowing him would provide something I
thought I was missing internally.
I remembered the crowd, most likely desiring that hundred-dollar
bill, while they sat glued to their chairs. What were they waiting
for? An Oliver Wendell Holmes quote ran through my mind,
"Many people die with their music still inside them."
Instantly, I knew I needed to do something about all this waiting.
The inspiration came like lightening: I was going to write a book!
A book about waiting and call it "Waiting for Jack!"
Instantly, ideas and chapter titles came to me.
It all sounded good but then reality hit, I was writing a book. .
. . Some nights I cried and wanted to give up; others I celebrated
my courage. I wrote, re-wrote, ripped it all up, burned what was
left and started over. I hired editors, changed directions then
changed back. I danced in the moonlight and curled up in a ball on
the floor. I told everyone I was writing, and then wished I
hadn't. I grew, contracted, then grew again, stretching further
than I ever thought possible.
Fortunately, I have surrounded myself with a life of personal
development and I have access to all the tools anyone could ever
want. I know I can "feel the fear and do it anyway". I
know how to take action. I know how to move forward even when
every molecule in my body tells me to stop.
We all have a "Jack" for whom we wait -- whether it's a
person, a place or a thing. We falsely believe the gifts of life
are just around the corner; that anywhere is better than here;
that one day we will arrive and everything will be okay. So we
don't try, we give up, we sell out, we forget who we are. We are
afraid to succeed, afraid to fail and afraid to say we are afraid.
But as Wayne Gretzky said: "You'll always miss 100% of the
shots you don't take!" So I stopped waiting and I wrote.
Three years later, Waiting
for Jack is
a best-seller on Amazon! I have grown in ways I never expected. I
know that I am capable of so much more than I ever knew before.
Now
I ask you, what are you waiting for?
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Kristen Moeller is the bestselling author of Waiting
for Jack: Confessions of a Self-Help Junkie: How to Stop Waiting
and Start Living Your Life.
As a coach, speaker, and radio show host, Kristen delights in
"disrupting the ordinary" and inspiring others to do the
same. She first discovered her passion for personal development in
1989 after recovering from an eating disorder and addiction.
Kristen is also the founder of the Chick-a-go Foundation -- a
not-for-profit that provides "pay it forward"
scholarships for life altering training programs reaching people
who otherwise cannot afford such opportunities. For
more information visit www.waitingforjack.com |
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Sing a Song
Joseph J. Mazzella
I was driving along yesterday listening
to one of my favorite radio stations. It was playing a song that I found both uplifting and energizing. Since I
was alone and unlike others don't mind my singing voice, I sang along. As I
started to go down a
mountain, though, the signal began to fade. I was soon left with nothing but static. For a
moment I considered changing the station to something else, but in the end I thought better of it. I
instead turned the radio off and kept on singing the song I loved so much.
Life can be like that sometimes, too.
Sometimes life doesn't let us tune in the radio station we want. Sometimes we are left with only static and junk we
don't want to listen to. It is then that we have to make a choice. Are we going to whine and
complain about the static and make ourselves miserable? Are we going to tune in the junk just
because it is all that is on? If we do either, we are doing no favor to
ourselves.
There is
another choice, however. We can instead turn off that radio and sing to the music that is within our own
souls. We don't have to be miserable because life didn't give us what we wanted. We don't have
to go along with what life and other people hand us. We can create our own music. We can
sing songs of joy, love, and light. We can make our life a concert of never ending happiness.
It has been said many times that life
is a song that we sing. Make your song a beautiful one then. Make your song an uplifting and energizing one.
Make your song one that touches the hearts of others. Make your song a love song in
which everyone finds happiness and no one gets hurt. Make your song full of fun, forgiveness, kindness,
caring, laughter, light, goodness, and oneness with God. Make your song one that you will
sing joyfully for all eternity.
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
whatever you disagree
with--just know that they'll be here for you
each week. |
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Eyes Wide Open
a column
Taking Care
of Me
Most of us
have read enough articles about taking care of ourselves to know
that it's not selfish to want to do so--it's
not egocentric and it's not bad. In fact, most articles
that we read tell us that unless we take care of ourselves, it's
almost impossible to take care of or help out others who may
need us. How can we help others when we're so needy
ourselves?
Sometimes,
though, I'm convinced that many of us--myself included--don't so
much take care of themselves as try to fill what we perceive as
needs. In other words, we don't plan our time and
activities in a way that's good for our physical and mental
health as much as we try to plug up "need holes,"
thinking that buying this thing or doing this thing will help to
make us whole.
One of my
students just finished a very important paper on the need for
sleep and exercise, and the effects of the lack of both.
Sleep is one of the ways that I best take care of myself--I make
sure I get enough as often as I can. I go to bed much
earlier than most people because I know I get up earlier than
most. I take naps whenever possible, too, and I try
to make sure that if I'm deprived of sleep for whatever reason,
I make up for it as soon as possible.
In his
paper, the student pointed out that if we don't get enough of
these two extremes--extreme inactivity (sleep) on the one hand, extreme
activity (exercise) on the other--we can't find the balance there in the
middle where it's supposed to be. And he's right.
Yet how many of us consciously try to arrange our schedules so
that we're getting enough sleep? He pointed out in his
paper that most people, when they're faced with hard decisions
concerning time, will cut back on sleep and exercise first of
all. In a way, they're sabotaging themselves, for once
they do that, they're functioning far below their peak levels
when they spend their time doing the things they've decided to
focus on.
How often do
you cut back on something that you definitely need in order to
afford--either with time, money, or emotional input--something
that you feel is a strong need? How often do you sabotage
your chance for happiness or success because you've deprived
yourself of something that's incredibly vital to you as a human
being? I have a friend who spends so much time on her
job--nine hours a day at work, then two or three at home
afterwards--that she's approaching burn-out so quickly that it's
frightening. She doesn't address her needs for
relaxation--re-creation, if you will--so she's losing her
effectiveness at work.
And how many
people spend tons of time at work in order to provide for their
families financially, while at the same time neglecting their
children because they're at work all the time? Not only
are they neglecting their children's needs to spend time with a
parent, but they're neglecting their own needs to spend time
with their children.
I find that
the best way for me to take care of me is to cut back almost
everywhere. I work as much as I need to get the job done
well. I watch less television so that I can relax and
think and process what's happened in my day. I go out less
so that I can relax more. I buy fewer things so that the
money can go towards more pressing needs. I say
"no" to things that will cut into my time that I know
almost anyone else can do. I don't volunteer for
everything that comes along. I'm a giving person by
nature, but I know that when that's taken to an extreme, the
giving takes away my focus from many of the things I want and
need to focus on.
Have you
taken stock of your own life recently? Have you ever sat
down with a sheet of paper and a pen, and written
"Wants" and "Needs" at the tops of two
columns, and then proceeded to make a list of both? Try it
sometime, and I think you'll be surprised at how many things
that you now consider to be needs will end up in the list of
wants. And if we're truly taking care of ourselves, the
wants and the needs will be prioritized much differently.
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A smile
costs nothing but gives much.
It enriches those who receive, without making poorer those who
give.
It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever.
Anonymous
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It's
all I have to bring to-day,
This, and my heart beside,
This, and my heart, and all the fields,
And all the meadows wide.
Be sure you count, should I forget,--
Some one the sum could tell,--
This, and my heart, and all the bees
Which in the clover dwell.
Emily
Dickinson
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Cultivating Happiness
Rinatta Paries
We always seem to want those things we don't have.
Moreover, we are often convinced that if we had those things we
want so badly, we would finally be happy.
Singles who want to be in a relationship often believe
once they are in one they will finally be happy. Those in
shaky relationships hope their relationship will work out,
because having worked it out will finally make them happy.
"I will be happy when I am in love." "I
will be happy when he/she does really loves me." "I will
be happy when I know he or she is committed to me." "I will be
happy when my husband/wife is more considerate." Sound
familiar?
The truth is that happiness is an attitude. It's not
something created by outside circumstances, but instead is
completely within your control. This means that you can be
happy regardless of whether you are in a relationship or
not. You can be happy regardless of whether your relationship is
working out or not. If fact, if you cultivate happiness,
your relationship will improve.
You will not get that deep sense of satisfaction and
happiness you crave just by getting or improving a relationship.
Nothing will give you that sense of happiness, unless you
cultivate it consciously.
Is the glass half empty or half full? Life and
relationships work better when the glass is half full. Below
are some simple yet specific steps you can take to cultivate happiness
and see the glass half full, regardless of your relationship
status.
1. Be grateful
Create a sense of gratitude for what you have, for
what is working, for what is wonderful and sweet in your life.
A morning or evening gratitude list, written each day,
can do wonders for helping you feel grateful.
2. Take care of yourself
Identify the small things in life that make you feel
good, and do one daily. A short walk, a few minutes of
writing in your journal, a short meditation, watching the sunset.
Whatever reminds you that you are a human being and not a human
doing will improve your outlook on life.
3. Be creative
Creativity and self-expression generate happiness.
Schedule some creative time each day, even if it's just a few
minutes of writing, painting, sculpting, etc.
4. Move
Moving our bodies generates feel-good hormones called endorphins. Move a little every day to stay
happy.
5. Get someone to take care of you
It feels good to be taken care of, even in small ways.
Get a massage, a manicure, someone to carry your groceries,
launder your clothes, or fix something for you.
6. Read inspirational material
It helps to be reminded of positive thoughts and
positive attitudes. Get a small book of positive,
inspirational thoughts and keep it by your desk. Read one or two
thoughts each day.
7. Contribute
Stand up for something that matters to you.
Contributing, making a difference feels good. It boosts your
self-esteem, your gratitude and feeling of well being.
8. Get some time
I know this one is hard, especially if you are a
single parent. But if you are determined, you can find some time
every day to just be. Make sure you do this - it will make a
big difference in your ability to be happy.
9. Be in nature
Nature rejuvenates and restores the human spirit.
Whether your brand of nature is mountains or the ocean, give
yourself the gift of visiting it frequently.
10. Be happy
No matter how many wonderful things you do to create a
positive, happy, satisfied life, you could still end
up unhappy. Ultimately, happiness, gratitude, a feeling of
satisfaction is a choice. People often do not choose happiness.
Many feel refusing to be happy will somehow get them what whey
want, like a child holding his breath. Holding your breath
will not get your what you want. It is happiness that
attracts.
Your Relationship Coach,
Rinatta Paries
www.WhatItTakes.com
This article was originally published by Coach Rinatta
Paries in "The Relationship Coach Newsletter," a
weekly e-zine for people who want fulfilling relationships. For singles,
the newsletter will help you attract your Mr. or Ms.
Right. If you're in a relationship, you will learn to create
more closeness and intimacy with your mate. To subscribe,
go to www.WhatItTakes.com |
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We must be ever on
the search for some persons
whom we shall love and who will love us in return.
If good will and affection are taken away, every joy is taken from life.
Cicero
please
make this a beautiful week in your life. . . .
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