Even a snake sheds its skin
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Thought of the Day
I don’t know if the weather is getting nicer where you are, but it sure is here. The sun is out longer and longer every day, and the days are getting warmer and warmer. Here in California, it’s true we don’t get to experience the seasonal changes as some other places in the country / world, but the onset of spring is very special to many no matter where you are.

I’m right there with you too. I love the spring! To me spring is the sign of birth and rebirth; a time to start new things, or start anew with old things. To me, the onset of spring is more important and certainly more exciting than the beginning of the year. And this is where “spring cleaning” comes from too.

So, I would like everyone to at least start thinking and planning about your spring cleaning. Oh, you don’t think I mean cleaning house do you? Well, that’s a good place to start, but just as your house accumulates dust and things over the winter time, you body, mind and soul accumulates clutter too. Right now I’m more interested in you cleaning the clutter from your body, mind and soul. If you think about it, you know what I’m talking about. Use your newly found will-power and start cutting back. Open the shades on the windows of your heart and mind and let the light shine into those dark, musty corners… plenty or webs grew there over the winter – time to get rid of them.

Reduce the clutter and brighten things up, and I promise you’ll be much happier.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Do you see silver linings?
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
I heard the other day someone ask a psychic; “I feel like I’ve been thrown out of a plane flying at 4,000 feet without a parachute – what can I do? The psychic replied; “Hang on; it will all be over soon.”

Of course everyone laughed, except (I would guess) for the person that asked the question. But where the psychic / motivational speaker was coming from was from a positive verses negative perspective. The New Thought movement teaches us that we are to move forward with an attitude of gratitude. Well, that is all well and good, but is it good to say, “I am so grateful that I am out of work, and have no money to speak of”. We can and should accept our lives as they are, because there is a lesson for us in everything, but we certainly don’t have to be grateful that we need to open a vein and sell blood in order to buy a ‘kids-meal’! To be grateful for the negative is counter productive and will only lead to more negative.

If you’ve been thrown out of a plane at 4,000 feet, then your perspective of things beneath you should be pretty good. You also will have some time to change some things. We live in a very relative world, and there are always at least two sides to everything (sometimes more). Try to see the positive instead of the negative. We get to assign the meaning to our lives – that is what God called free choice… so why not assign good to the good you can find? OK… the good may not always be easy to see. A silver lining can be pretty small when we are looking at a massive, dark, rain cloud, but trust me – the silver lining is there - always.

I know one thing I will promise you - one thing for certain. If there is no silver lining – if you cannot or will not see the silver lining – you cannot or will not EVER see the rainbow!

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

What WILL you do?
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
Will-power; do you have it? It’s probably one of the most difficult things for a great number of people. Where does it come from or how do you get it.

Will-power to me is the ability to persist amid distraction and temptation – and just plain laziness - it is perseverance. From an esoteric perspective the 5 th chakra is the seat of communication and will-power. This is not too surprising because the 5 th chakra is located in the neck along with the thyroid gland. Anyone that has hypothyroidism knows how a poor metabolism impacts motivation.

So how do you fix a poor will-power? I won’t go into the esoteric now, but just to let you know there is a process to align and clear your Chakras.

But lets look at the more practical. The way we normally create or manifest things in our lives is to first think, then talk and lastly do. To think a thing is to start the creative juices flowing. To talk about it builds a structure or foundation for the creation to happen, and then the doing is the creation itself. If you want to change something that has already been created (by you or another) then you will find it easier to reverse the creative process. Don’t think about it… don’t talk about it… just do it (talk and think later). For example; you feel like you should exercise more. You think about it.. even talk about it, but when it comes time to the actual creation… it never happens. In order for you to change that you must change the process. You feel like you need more exercise – don’t think about it, get up and walk around the block. Just do it - later you can talk and think about how good you felt for doing something you wanted / needed to do.

Now remember will-power is helped (or hindered) a great deal by habits. It takes approximately 28 days for our brains to physically destroy and create a new neural network that makes up any single habit. Every habit you have has its own neural net. Give your body enough time to physically change, which takes about a month.

There is another key to will-power, and that is passion. If you are not passionate about something, your ability to create it, or change it will probably not happen. So, make good choices based on your passions, and you will start to see things happening.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Gotta lot of frogs to eat??
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
Are you overwhelmed? Do you get up in the morning remembering your dreams, which were nothing more than all the things you have to do today and the rest of the week / month?! Do you have the feeling of “where the hell do I start?!” I have to tell you, it’s not an uncommon feeling (you are not alone) in the current political and economical state of our country (and the world). Of course you probably know this, but being overwhelmed is no fun. All too often these feelings segue into feelings of fatigue, depression, frustration and anger – just to name a few.

So, you’re feeling overwhelmed – I’m here to tell you, you have too much on your plate. I guess I wouldn’t be much of a life coach if I left you with such an obvious statement – Doh! So, what are we going to do? My first question is, “Are you SURE you cannot delegate any of your ‘to do’ list?” I have to ask are you sure, because I know how hard it can be sometimes to let go of ownership of your to-do list. But if it comes to your well being I recommend delegate, delegate, and delegate.

Oh wait – do you even have a ‘to-do list’? That is the first step. Write it down! If you are trying to juggle everything in memory – you’re are most certainly heading for a hard-drive crash! – write it down. Then prioritize. This can be hard to do for some, but here’s a hint – if you’ve been putting something off or over 2 weeks – that’s your number one item on the list. Remember – “If you have a lot of frogs to eat – eat the biggest frogs first!” Once you have your list – start to schedule your day. OK, I know that may sound really anal for some of you, but if you are feeling overwhelmed doing things with a plan, on a schedule will all but wipe away those overwhelming feelings. Lastly, start a practice of relaxation. I recommend both journaling and meditation. (do both for kicks!)

If you do these things it’s been my experience your stress due to being overwhelmed will decrease quite a bit, and you’ll find yourself moving forward again with a more positive mind-set.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Risk it!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
Do you remember the last time it was that you fell down? I mean really fell down where you ripped up your skirt or jeans, your knees were bloodied and the palms of your hands looked liked ground beef with sticks and stones sticking out of them. Unless I miss my guess, you’ve not fallen like that in several years.

Have you ever thought about why that is? Well for one thing most of us have traded in our bicycle for a stationary one at the gym, and the roller blades (in my day they were called skates) or skateboards have been traded in for Prada pumps and Florsheim oxfords that we don’t dare scuff up. Our childhood exuberance and daring is not gone necessarily, but we have certainly traded in the bloody scraped knees for most likely a jacked up pride or ego.

But here’s the difference. When we were children, as soon as we were bandaged we were back up on the bike or strapping on the roller-skates for more action. Yes, the wounds hurt – and we cried, but they didn’t stop us from moving forward. Today, when we get our pride or ego banged up, it can take days or weeks (sometimes even much longer) to get over and past it so that we can truly move forward.

As my mentor Debbie Ford would say, we have to learn to turn our “wounds into wisdom”. We cannot stop taking risks because we are afraid of falling and scraping our knees. So go pull the 10 speed or mountain bike out of the garage or storage locker, and go for a spin (I promise you will remember how). As you speed past people walking along, or as you fend off chasing dogs like some jousting knight of old… remember… remember your youth and the risks you allowed yourself. If a 10 year old can do it… so can you.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Gotta luv it!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Career
Do you feel like walking into your boss’s office and saying, “you can take this job and shove it!” Hmmmm, if you feel this way I’m thinking that is probably just what you should do. Except in this time of joblessness, it’s probably not your best option.

So what is it about your job that you dislike so much? Were you deceived about what the job entailed, so now that you have it you are forced to do something totally different than what you thought you’d be doing? Did you know it was a crap job but you took it anyway because you needed a job? Do you have it somewhere encoded in the darkness of your mind that a ‘job’ is supposed to be drudgery and a pain in the ass?

I know people that say a job is not a tool to our happiness; it is just a job – they say happiness is found in other things but a job is just a place to earn money. There are others that respond to that by saying, “if you love what you are doing, then you never have to work another day of your life”. What perspective sounds better to you? Personally, I’d rather love what I’m doing.

So, what is it you’d love to be doing right now? If it is your dream to be a surgeon, saving lives – or a famous Hollywood actress entertaining and giving joy to millions of people; well that’s a great dream and you might work toward that, but it’s not the kind of ‘job’ you get overnight. You have to have years of preparation and sacrifice for those jobs. It’s not to say that you cannot have those jobs, you just have to have the proper perspective. So, if you can’t make money doing what you’d love to do; what then?

Here’s the key you are looking for. You don’t have to do what you love – you only have to love what you are doing. First ask yourself, why are you at work? Are you working because your husband is out of work right now and you have 3 kids that seem to talk to you only to ask you what’s for dinner?! You are not working because you love answering phones and filing papers and cleaning up (you can do that at home). No, you’re working because you are a loving mother or father that wants to support your family. So, your success at work is not measurement of how good a file clerk you are, but rather how good a provider you are to your family! With that measure of success how much easier is it to love what you are doing?

If you are truthful with yourself as to why you are doing what you are doing, then it will be that much easier to be a success – and if you are successful, what’s not to love?

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Rocks to stone walls.
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Thought of the Day
Have you ever been swept away with the feeling that everything is happening just the way it should be? It’s pretty easy to feel that way when everything seems to be going ‘good’, but what about those times when things are not going so ‘good’. How about those times when you feel pretty lousy? In those moments it’s fairly difficult to feel as if that is the way it should be.

Good and Bad are relative terms, but beside that how can we accept only the good things in our lives and reject bad? Life happens, and if there is a reason for everything then doesn’t that mean the bad as well as the good? Actually that’s when we hear that phrase most often. When good is happening, "everything is just as it should be", and when bad is happening, “everything happens for a reason”. Ladies and gentlemen – the pieces are interchangeable. Everything (good and bad) happens for a reason, and it is all exactly as it should be. It’s this sort of acceptance that will keep you moving forward.

Don’t think for a second that I want you to resign yourself to a lousy life – that is not the case. But if you reject the rocks in your path they soon become boulders and you’re no longer stubbing your toe but rather banging your head on the rock wall before you. “Everything happens for a reason”, and “it’s all as it should be” are both terms of acceptance. Again, you don’t have to resign yourself to a lousy life, but you must be painfully aware of it and accept it if you want to be able to change it, and more importantly – learn from it.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

WYSIWYG
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
What you see, is what you get. Or is it? I suppose there are many things in the very relative, physical world were that may be the case, but more often than not, we are in for big surprises if we don’t anticipate what lay beneath. A smooth river only means that it is very deep, and the current beneath the lazy surface could likely carry you far away, if not drown you. If you look beneath the colorful, shiny surface of your finest China plates, you’ll still find a form of clay – mud. Not long ago a missing Van Gogh drawing, “Wild Vegetation” was found, quite accidentally, under the famous Van Gogh painting of “the Ravine” by way of x-ray imaging.

So, what about that woman in the office that is just too stiff and stand-offish; the one that never seems to have anything pleasant to say. Have you ever thought much of what is laying beneath her surface? What about the young athlete that is so arrogant and struts the halls of the school as if he were a rooster – what do you suppose is beneath his surface? If we look for the reason beneath the behavior, we might just see more than we expect. We might see that frightened child, or insecure person calling for help, making it far more difficult for us to be angry or hold a grudge against them.

Be conscious of what lay beneath. Because whatever you might find beneath the surface of another – rest assured the same exists beneath YOUR surface.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

Small packages
Mood:  happy
Topic: Thought of the Day
“Good things come in small packages”. You’ve probably heard that a million times, yes? Do you believe it yet? Or are you the type that likes the BIG BANG sort of gift?

Have you ever called your partner and told him/her that you’re running late – that it’s been a horrible day – only to arrive at home to find that special someone making dinner for you? Cooking dinner - a big thing? Have you ever woken on Saturday morning with plans to go out with the boys to watch the game on the big screen TV, but instead woke your kids and took them out to breakfast? Spending a little time with your kids – a big thing? Have you ever run down to the quickie market for a quart of milk, and bought a rose to bring back to your partner? Thinking of your partner – a big thing?

Some of the littlest things you might do can bring about the biggest reactions – don’t under estimate the little things. My dad turns 75 years old next month and right now he’s living with cancer. Yes, it’s being treated, but it’s not all gone. You know what he’s doing this weekend? He took my mom camping. Camping – a big thing? No. Having cancer and still “LIVING” – a big thing? YES!!!

The choices are ours to make. Choose the little things, and if you must choose something big than choose a little thing but with BIG passion! Remember, diamonds come in the smallest of boxes.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard

A wishing well.
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Thought of the Day
“Beauty comes from within.” I’m sure that all of you have heard that before. But what else comes from within? Well, it’s not a huge secret – pretty much everything comes from within. Do you want respect? Then you respect others. Do you want friendship? Then you are a friend to others. Do you want generosity, hope and love? Then you are generous, hopeful and loving to others.

So, with this knowledge, why are we constantly searching for such things outside ourselves? We feel there is something we don’t have so like most other things in a relative, physical world, we have to go out and get them. We go to the store, shop around and eventually find exactly what we think we need and buy it. We all know, however that we cannot buy hope, or love. Sure you can throw money at just about anything and have something happen, but in the way of love etc… that would be an illusion.

We have to stop trying to fill the emptiness with the stuff that is around and outside us. So much of what we need is already inside us, all we have to do is accept it and access it. God did not create us as incomplete beings – we are, every one of us, complete and whole. The goal is to remember that, and strive to become that – whole.

The well of the spirit is not as deep as many have led us to believe. We can drink from those waters, and it will refresh you.

You know why you are reading these words today.

Love and Bright blessings ~ Richard