Lesson 7

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we make a playlist of songs that mean a lot to us. Spotify is perfect for this. You'll have to download the app to your phone, tablet or computer but it's worth it. Add all the songs that are attached to a memory or an important time. Times & memories like when got married, the songs you "do it" to, the ones that make you happy, the ones you played because you got your heart broke, the ones that make you think of someone and the ones that make you feel stronger and encouraged, the ones that make you think of family or certain people, ya know, just all your damn songs.

This will be the best scrapbook of who you are. Once you are done making the list, listen to the whole thing even if some of the songs have lost their appeal. I promise you this will remind you of who you are if you have somehow forgotten.

I pulled out the songs that reminded me of singing with Brian Rose on the back of the ball bus for the kids making out in the backseats, who yelled at us to shut up, when we were both to afraid to even have a first kiss. Some of the songs were songs that we did cheer dances to. Some were songs I cried to in my dark high school bedroom after a breakup. Some were songs that made me wonder as a child what it would be like to have a father who loved me. Some were songs I heard the first time with Bryan that we both still love. Some were from people we've seen play live music over and over. One was from the first concert I ever went to. Some were from 1984, the year I graduated high school. Some were songs that blew my mind the very first time I heard them. Some were just straight up memories with my grandparents. Some were songs my mom loved and always played in the house. A few are from an artist I've tried to always play first in every new car I've ever had. Some of the songs are just a testament to how much I love that damn Bryan Boles. You get it.

If you need some reminders you could google "songs from 1984" for example. Just put in the year or decade and it will bring up a lot of songs from that time and it might jog the memory of your memories.

Here is my list:

Okay so it's your turn and time for you to get at it. Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 8

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we will explore setting up an environment to help you become present, be in the moment and rest your thoughts.

I've taken note lately that the easiest way to stay present is to try to engage as many of your senses at once as you can. It kind of pulls everything into you like pulling a blanket over your head.

When you sit in mindful practice try to find a way to totally engage. Burn a candle or incense, just make sure it is a scent that you really love. Play music you love. Work on a project that you are excited about, study, meditate or just listen to that awesome music you have on. Make sure to be very comfortable where you sit and with what you wear.

Here is the exercise:

You'll need something to use to give your space smell. You can burn a candle, essential oils or incense. Here are some of my favorite scents:

• Escential Essences Incense - Rain Goddess/Plumeria

• HEM Incense - Raspberry

• Fabulous Frannie Happy Essential Oil Blend

• Edens Garden Purify Essential Oil Blend

You'll also need some soothing music. I love the videos on YouTube of music tuned to different frequencies like the pyramids. The pyramids are thought to be tuned for healing purposes. 

Here is an article about music and healing. Let me link you to some of these videos:

• TIBETAN FLUTE MUSIC + OM CHANTING @432Hz 

• 432Hz Miracle Tone - Raise Positive Vibrations 

• 528 Hz Heart Chakra Balance ➤ Emotional Stability | Aura Cleansing, Inner Peace

So now, we should have a scent brewing in the air and some calm music on. Next, unless you chose to work on a creative project for this exercise, you should find a place to sit cross legged or to lie flat. Make sure you will not be interrupted. You may want to use headphones.

Now, for the next 30 minutes to 1 hour, I'd like for you to just take time for yourself. I feel like most of you have never done this before. But today it's all about you. Lay in your space allowing the music and the smell to close a wall around you where you get to tune in to being exactly who you are. You can think or not think. You can just try to follow the music or your breath as it rises and falls in your chest. Do what feels right to you. If you fall asleep don't kick yourself. You probably need it. 

When you decide to get up and go on with the day, whatever time it is, take a moment to check in with your body, mind and emotions and see if any or all of those parts of you feel calmer. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 9

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we will practice Kundalini Yoga. This particular yoga not only stretches our spines and joints it also massages the internal organs and ask you to close your eyes throughout to stay in tune with what you are doing. I'm going to link videos here and after you complete one of them, please lie still for a bit and tune into your mind and body to see if you notice a new stillness. That's it for today. 

Keep in mind that you can find many more videos like these on Youtube but I personally am a big fan of Maya Fiennes. Now go and click on one of them to follow along. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 10

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we are gonna take care of our faces. Today could not be more simple. Hopefully you took my list of supplies you need seriously because today you are gonna need that face mask. Walmart has all kinds of individual mask like these. The mask in the photo is MaryKay. 

That's it people, just follow the directions on the mask you chose and give yourself a facial. Follow your mask with whatever skincare routine you have if ya have one. If you don't have products you use I can personally vouch for this seller on Etsy who has some awesome and inexpensive face oils. I use her Marvy Face Oil- for Mature Skin and love it.

I'm not gonna give a big explanation of this exercise. It's just a good practice and makes you feel good too.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 11

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we are gonna talk about use it or lose it. 

If we are born healthy our bodies come equipped with a full range of motion. In our general life we neglect to use that full range. Poor, poor bodies. They have to get sick of never getting the chance to live to their full potential. How often do you stretch your arms above your head, grasp your hands behind your back or stretch your waist from side to side? If you are like me, you would probably answer seldom to never.

I've recently been thinking about this. Maybe that is because my left shoulder spent a year trying to learn what it's full range of motion was all over again. A few years back I had what is termed as a "frozen shoulder." I know the pain I felt was my shoulder yelling at me to use it so I wouldn't lose it.
This was all a reminder for me that my body will be there for me throughout my life as much as I show up for it. We need to commit to showing up. I am going to give my body what it needs on the level that feels right for me. Stretching will definitely be a huge part of it and I hope it will be for you.

Is your body trying to tell you something? Maybe it's time to listen before it starts yelling, cause it will and it won't be nice about it when it does.

Here are links to a few sites with articles about stretching. Hopefully one will appeal to you and get you started:

• The 10 Best Stretches for Flexibility
• 6 Full-Body Stretching Exercises
• 7 early-morningstretches to build a better body

Remember that YouTube is always a good source of these type things.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 12

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we are gonna take care of our nails. 

1. You need a pan to soak your feet.
2. Baking Soda
3. A nail for or cuticle stick
4. Nail Clippers
5. A heel file if ya need one
6. A Towel
7. Lotion or a good skin oil

This is gonna be easy but could take a bit. Do the following:

• get all your supplies together
• fill the pan with water as warm as you can stand and add a couple of table spoons of baking soda and swish it around to disolve it
• soak your feet a few minutes
• dry your feet, cut and file your nails to the length you like - I like the length that gives me a tiny outline of white
• soak a bit more then dry your feet again
• take your file or cuticle stick and start to rub around the nail above where your cuticles are. you will start to see debris come up and that is what we are looking for. Keep this up until you feel like you've got all that off
• soak a bit more then dry your feet again
• if your heels are split or callused scrub them smooth with the heel file
• dry your feet and add the lotion or oil

Now for the why on this. I am asking you to do this because, like many things, if you allow parts of your being to go neglected they will get in bad disrepair and when you are older it will be much harder to get these things back in shape. You need to take care of these things now. Think about the older people you know with thick ugly yellow nails and imagine if they never once did what you did today. That is what happens when ya don't.

Now you can also do the nails on your hands but they probably won't ever get as funky as your feet if you neglect them. It's up to you.

Good for you if you took time to care for yourself following this exercise. I know you feel better. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 13

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm gonna let Amy Cuddy take this one. Just give her a listen. Amy also has a book if you are interested in knowing more about this. You can find her book here.

Make sure to do your chosen power pose for 2 minutes today. Maybe even turn your internal expansion exercise into a power pose going forward. 

In some of her videos Amy points out the New Zealand All Blacks Haka to show you just how powerful power posing can be. I challenge you to watch the following videos and try not to feel the intimidation factor in what you see.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 14

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I introduce you to Anita Moorjani. She also wrote a book about her experience called Dying To Be Me that you can find here and it is amazing.

Anita's journey represents the most extreme version of a body responding to the separation of self from soul. If our souls keeps telling us that we have veered from our path and we refuse to hear it because the outside world tells you another story of needing to blend in, it will finally find a way to be heard.

I would caution you from always trying to name your ailments so that you can get medicine that will mask your symptoms. Instead try to find the source of the ailment so that you can finally be healed. More times than not, if they tell you that they cannot find anything wrong with you and you keep showing up wanting a different answer, they will finally give you a different answer. Would your time not be better served trying to get to the root of why you have symptoms in the first place. Are you getting enough exercise, are you stretching, have you tried paying attention to what certain foods and drinks do to your body, are you keep stress at a manageable level and the big one is are you being authentic with who you are and how you live?

It took disease and near dying to make Anita see the changes she needed to make in the way she thought about who she was. That is why the title of the book alone tells such a story. She had to almost die to see herself and become exactly what she was meant to be the day she was born. She had to free herself of all the things that the world taught her about who she was and finally meet the very soul/essence of who she really is.

Obviously I am not an expert on being miraculously healed from terminal illness or accessing altered states of consciousness, so I'm leaving it to someone who is. This story will amaze you. Please take the time it takes to listen to her story. 

If you ever think you are without hope, you could certainly be wrong. And you might also find that being in a situation that seems hopeless could be the pathway to learning a much needed lesson to move you forward and give you the life you've always wanted. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 15

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class that I borrowed from my blog SoulPony. Please watch the videos below. I am bringing this to this class because I want you to understand that we see things the way we are taught to and sometimes these things are not true. We are more connect to the world that we live in than we ever knew. That's what you will find in the videos below. 

Here are a few things I want to share with you and maybe I've touched on some of it before but I just want to make this post a micro encyclopedia of this type of thing. I'm just going to post a few videos and then I'll do a very small wrap-up at the end. Don't skip down. You need to immerse yourself these experiments first.

Here's the water crystal discovery:

Here is the rice experiment:

Tom Shadyac talks briefly about the experiment he was part of in his Docu "I AM" You can see the entire thing at that link.

Here is the video where Myth Bustersa tried to debunk this.

and this:

And one last thing. Here are some singing plants:

Now here is my little take on it all but really more of a question to you:

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 16

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we will examine playing. 

How Do You Play?

You do play right? Cause if ya don't you will get old so much quicker than those who still find ways to play.

If your life consists of only going to work and home you've gotta change that. We live in a time where you could potentially run down to the nearest outdoor store, buy a boat and be on the water before it's even time to eat your lunch. In fact you could find a million ways to play without even taking out your wallet. So why aren't you doing it? If you are sad, depressed or even tired, I'll bet you are not taking time to play. Just walking out of your house and down the street could change everything. Hearing the sounds of birds, feeling the sun or a breeze across your skin or just looking at the green of the grass and leaves can instantly turn a mood from bad to good.

I don't know how it is that adults forget how much they need these things. It is just like food, you need play to survive. Playing allows us to put worries and stress on a back burner. It makes us feel alive. If you are just going to work and home you are missing vital ingredients to a fulfilled life. You don't have to be good at sports. You don't have to have a large amount of endurance. You don't have to have any sort of skill to take on a hobby. People say to me all the time that they have never kayaked like they need to have that experience to try it once. No one has those skills until they do the activity. The only thing you need to try a new hobby is enthusiasm. You just have to want to.

Do you remember how magical playing was as a child? Why do you skip on having that magic now? No matter where you live there is something you could do to play. Buy a hula-hoop at the Dollar Store and teach yourself how to use it again. Put a puzzle together. Go for a hike in the park. Walk through your neighborhood. Ride a bike. Hike a trail. Go for a swim. Jump rope or on a trampoline. Find a place in your yard and just lay there looking up at the sky. Play a board or card game. Go camping. Join your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews or neighborhood children in outdoor games or just catching fireflies. Read a book. Buy bubbles and silly string from the store and play with them until you run out of light. There really is no end to the things you could do to play. Make a dreamcatcher. If you don't believe you need this, try it once. Give it just 10 minutes if that is all you have in you to give. I know you will find that you've been missing it and didn't even know it.

Now I'm gonna let Tim Brown take this:

As adults we forget how important playing is to keeping us young. Don't give up and get effin' old.

Go forth in your day and shine, shine AND play.

Lesson 17

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm gonna  refer you here to read why meditation is so beneficial to your well being.

Here is an article on meditations for beginners.

And here is one of the so so many meditation videos on youtube:

 

Here is a meditation that incorporates yesterday's lesson on play. It is just here to make you smile:

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 18

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm gonna refer you straight to the author Pam Grout. I am certainly not an expert regarding the law of attraction so I'm just gonna let ya get right into today's class.

You can find Pam Grout's books here and if you decide to read some of them I know they will make you smile.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 19

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along the class today where we will explore why it is important to breathe deeply.

Here is an article regarding deep breathing. and here is another one with 5 reasons why we should breathe deeply.

The business I work in I see people nearing the end of their life and I have found that most of them have issues with breathing. That is often their main diagnosis and the reason they need our help. This is one reason I wanted to talk about deep breathing. I believe taking time out of your day to do some deep breathing might keep your lungs healthy and prevent you from having problems later in life. Your lungs need this kind of exercise.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 20

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with the class today where we will be looking at how much control we have over our emotions and feelings. I took the liberty of borrowing my own video of an exercise I have already recorded that covers this topic. This will be quick and mostly painless.

If you took the time to watch the video and follow along then you were able to see and feel how you took control of your emotions in various ways. I also want to ask you to be honest about this next thing. Have you ever been in a situation where emotions run high and worried how people would feel about you if you didn't look bothered? In those moments did you ever crank up your show of emotion just to not end up the topic of conversation later when someone might point out how little it seemed you cared? It could have happened in a relationship or at a funeral. The point is that we know a certain level of response is expected in some situations. We have to be ready to admit to ourselves that even in those instances we have a choice how we respond. I hope this helps us all to be a better steward of our feelings and emotions.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 21

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with the class today where we will explore perspective.

Find a quiet spot, get still and think about how you believe the world/everyone sees you. Think about any thoughts of fear, guilt, insecurity and any sort of just not measuring up that you believe anyone has ever thought about you. Take your journal/notebook and write these thoughts down in detail. 

These thoughts in your head may even look a little like the room in the picture above but maybe they are bright and beautiful like the sight through the open door. If they are like the sight through the door, you probably don't really even need this course but if you feel more like the inside of the house, then you are in the right spot. 

Now, if you took the time to sift through all the thoughts of failure and never measuring up, it's time to move to the next step. 

Imagine for a moment that every person on earth is gone and you are the only one left. Think about this really hard and allow yourself to feel what that would feel like. Would you immediately feel alone? What would that feel like to you? After you take that moment to let this digest, I want you to do one more thing. Read back over your list of all the ways that you feel like you have failed. In this world where you are alone you could shout it to the treetops and no one would hear. Is there one thing on that list that would matter if there were no one here to witness your falling short? Aren't most of your feelings of falling short dependent on having a witness? If there were no one there to witness, would we still feel the need to twist, turn and try to manipulate ourselves to make us more palatable to others?

Let me remind you that you do not have access to other's perceptions. So, when you assume that you know how another person sees you, you are only exchanging your own perception (the only one you can readily access) with theirs. It's not so much that you know how they probably see you but that it's how you see yourself and you assume they have the same impression and you project your belief onto them. The story you tell yourself about others is really just your own story or what you believe your story is.

Without the ability to see things firsthand from someone else's perspective we can only substitute our own perspective for how they may see a thing. Remember that when we battle someone else there is a good chance we are only doing battle with ourselves. Stop fighting your own self and be who you are. It wouldn't matter who you are if no one was here to witness and it doesn't matter when they are. We need only to win ourselves over. When we do, those old visions of lack will be transformed to riches beyond measure. You only see as you know so all you have to do is know something better.

Now you can have all your people back and hopefully you will see them in a different way. You have not suffered alone with a broken perspective. It happens to all of us but maybe now you have shifted yours.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 22

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we be looking at the loss of wholeness. 

Today I'm just going to repost something from my blog that needs to be said but not rewritten. Basically today's class is just reading and entertaining somethings you might not think about often. The photo above could not be more representative of the way the world takes away who we are and leaves our minds a confused mess. Here is the post: 

You Don't Need Neo, You Can Be Your Own Effin' Neo

I remember watching The Matrix the very first time. I knew that story symbolically so well I could have written it. I had already begun seeing the "code" and I felt like I was Neo. I know that sounds so lofty, I ain't no fool to that but it is how I felt. I'd been a part of that world that embraced every idea of how to be a good little girl, wife and mother. I'd also got sick of being the idea of that and I shatter my place in it all and then I lived to see the other side. I felt like I was a much better person after I stopped trying to be one. I was real. I was authentic. I wasn't looking over my shoulder thinking someone would figure out that I'd played at something I wasn't. I also didn't worry what they'd think of the change. I didn't care. That was their thing and this was mine.

A few weeks back I was listening to Oprah's SuperSoul podcast with Iyanla Vanzant. The two were speaking of the first time they read A Course in Miracles. They recalled how scared they were of what God would think of them reading this book and how he might strike them with lightening before the end of the next day. Oprah said she was so afraid she just wanted to get it out of her house. I remember having the same feelings the first time I entertained that I might have been mislead. I knew without a doubt that I did not know the truth of this world but I was so scared to finally turn my back on everything I'd been taught. This is intentional in the teachings. It is a genius act to set up a system to control people and then set up within that system that you cannot question it without sacrificing your soul. Even Oprah, a lady who has had access to every well known guru of this century, was too afraid to have a book in her house that questioned the old belief system she grew up in. Genius. It's effin' genius. This country could not be more ensnared in this trap if they tried to be. 

What do we know? We know exactly what we have been taught. I can count on my hands the people I've know in my life that have the strength to open their eyes and judge and learn for themselves what the world is. I raised two of them in my house so that doesn't leave a lot of people.

We open our mouths at birth for nourishment at a time when we are unable to resist what is being fed to our fragile bodies and from there on out we keep swallowing it down and never ever judge for ourselves if it truly nourishes us. 

We listen to our families and see them respond and that's how we learn the rules. We go to school in a rigid environment where adults who learned about the world the same way we did, tell us the rules and who marginalize our differences and try to get us all to march to same standards no matter our talents oruniqueness. It's not their fault. It's just part of the system that keeps usenslaved to mediocrity. Our teachers grew up in the same system and so did our parents. And now it's your turn.

Think back to all of the movies and tv shows that you watched growing up. You weren't only taught what the standards are in the system by the people who influenced you growing up, you also saw it all over your tv and now you see it all over the internet. We are enshrined in a system that wants us all to be the same. I can count it back to the first memories I have. I can also count it back to the first tv shows I ever loved.

Leave it to Beaver had the mom happily homemaking in pearls and heels for her family. Gilligan's Island had a clear line drawn down the middle between the abilities of the women and men. Girls bake pies and boys fight off headhunters. Girls are fragile and shallow and men are strong and smart. Good Times was the show that taught us that black people were poor, lived in housing projects and no matter how hard they worked they still could not get ahead. People still believe these things. We watched women try to fend off advances from men only to give in if the man persisted. We also watched them try to fight off men but then give in once the man slapped their face, making it appear that this ignited passion and ultimately change their minds. That has never happened to me and if it did, a slap would only make me want out of the situation more. No wonder men are confused.

And no wonder women are confused. Until later in the last century women had been spoon fed being submissive, with no capacity for scientific or mathematical study, being without basic rights that men have always had and of a gender group that had no real voice in the world. Every idea and method that has been used to hold women down has been reinforced politically, socially, religiously and in a lot of ways, they still are today in 2017. It is the reason that even after the current president was heard to talk about women in such a nasty way, many of them still voted for him. In the minds of these women they heard him talk about women in a way that they felt was so common that it set off zero alarms in them. They are used to being marginalized and these women believed the role of being a woman puts them in a place where being spoken of in that sort of way was both expected and normal. 

Think back to any show you loved growing up and look for the propaganda used to make you stay in your role. This may not have be intentional but maybe just a mirror held up against how society operates. Think back to anything an adult ever taught you and you will see the effects of this. They taught you what they were taught to believe. At this point no one knows truth. It's why I abhor looking out on a golf course at a bunch of white men wearing polo shirts and bermuda shorts. Anytime there is a uniform involved in an activity it is from fear. They are afraid of bucking the system. They do not realize they can wear anything they want. The whole idea of a country club is like an institution built on and for the system. To be included in this club is a mark that you have bought all the way into the system. It's a bit of insanity.

There are some of you reading this right now and you are afraid just like Oprah was. It will be okay. If you take one step towards questioning the system, the cogs will start to fall apart, the machine will break down and you will stop buying in. When you see the truth you won't be able to go in reverse and unsee it. So, once the door is open you won't be able to close it back. Entertain every idea no matter how crazy and then you can decide for yourself that maybe it is crazy or maybe it's not at all. Up till now you've believed in some batshit crazy stuff. If you've been able to entertain those ideas your whole life, you can open the door a little wider and study on other things that might just seem crazy right now. You have to make yourself a little uncomfortable for the sake of progressing in life. If you only do what is comfortable you may as well stay on the couch and continue being programmed. If you weren't made to be unique why the hell were you born? If we are only going to be a copy and not an original then we may as well be programmed robots.

To come full circle, A Course in Miracles asked you to give every detail another look and try seeing without the definitions you were given of what a thing is and just try to see what the thing is for yourself. Most people will never think to do this and the suggestion of it scares them to death just like it did Oprah. If so many others can start to see the world through fresh eyes and decide for themselves what is right and wrong then you can too. Your fear is the only thing holding you back. It's sounds crazy to say but it is true. The line that separates you from ignorance is so fine it could be cracked like glass wall. You don't have to even break through the glass wall, just walk up to it for a second and look at what's on the other side.

If this all sounds cuckoo to you and nothing else you've believed up until this post has seemed crazy then you don't know what crazy is. You only know what people tell you crazy is. Since you were born someone has told you what a thing is and now I'm asking you to think and look and learn for yourself what it is.

Everything you think you know is a portrait painted by everything and everyone that has influenced your life. Paint over it and start all over. This time do it your way. Don't believe a single soul when they try to tell you what to paint. Don't even believe me. Just make sure it comes from your soul and not from outside influence.

If you want to be happy and stop feeling like you don't know who you are this is the way. You don't know YOU because the YOU in there got covered up with the camouflage the world gave you to wear so that you would fit in and not make waves. They don't even know when they do it because the code was already written when they arrived and they've lived it their whole lives. That is what is real to them even though it is the opposite of what is real. Don't wait on someone to decipher the code for you so that you can be free. You can be your own effin' Neo.

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 23

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where we examine finding our way out of being lost.

When you are young and "dumb" and also old and "dumb", we can make mistakes so large that we feel like we will be judged for them forever.  Here's where I'd like to refer you back to course Day 2 and Day 20.

On Day 2, in a roundabout way, we discussed defying stereotypes and on Day 20 we talked about our broken perspectives.

Everyday someone somewhere is defying the expectations that people have for someone just like you.  Whatever you have done in your life that you are not proud of there is someone who did the same thing, who flourished in society because they have a unique perspective that their failing led them to. They took their chunk of coal and turned it into a diamond. We could name people all day but here are just a few:

Cheryl Strayed 

Gabrielle Bernstein

Merle Haggard

Shaka Senghor 
Patricia Williams
Robert Downey Jr.
Eckhart Tolle - whose depression brought him knowledge that led him to be the most respected spiritual teacher alive today

These are people who succeeded in spite of either spending time in jail, being homeless, being addicted to drugs, selling drugs, having failed marriages and/or on another both related & unrelated note, going through tremendous bouts of depression and wanting to commit suicide.   

No person in the world is passed the point of being rehabilitated. Once they are rehabilitated, people don't readily look at them and immediately recall the terrible things they did. They are mostly just seen with deep respect for having overcome the obstacles that they overcame. 

Don't ever think you have gone too far to come back. 

So, today isn't really a lesson as much as it is a statement. You can always save yourself and people will forgive you. You just have to forgive yourself. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 24

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm just gonna ask you to read something form Soul Pony that I think is important.

what makes you a you and not a them

People say things to me like, "I could never get away with that," "I'd never be able to pull that off," & "I wouldn't look like you do if I wore that." Now they might just be trying to nicely say "you look like a fool" but if they do mean that, I am a fool because I don't believe that to be true.

Sometimes I go to an event and almost everyone is wearing pretty much the same thing. They wear what is in style right now or outfits that they see everyone else wearing. The easy thing to do is fit in. I don't want to dress just to fit in. I want to dress in what feels the most like me right down to my very bones. The biggest problem I have with clothing is when I look in the mirror and don't see me. I cannot swing that. I feel like an imposter. I have never put on a big stack of thick beads without looking in the mirror and saying to myself, who are you trying to be? It doesn't feel right. I'm not saying that people do not look amazing when they wear that but to me it does not feel right.

I think that dressing to fit in is just a symptom of  the bigger problems in society right now. We spend so much time trying to fit in that most of us have no clue who we are, what we like, and what is important to us. I remember when I noticed this the first time and how, at the time, I was no different. I modeled my life after the community I grew up in and I dressed and acted that part. By the time I had caught up with what had happened to me I didn't know who I was. I was strictly the product of the village that it took to raise me.

I took great pains to change all this and it started by trying to figure out who I was before the world sunk it's claws into me. I bought an old scrapbook and I filled it with the things that mattered to me. I tried to remember the things I liked as a child and all the things that made me a me and not a them. We are all different and I had to remember what made me different. I wasn't born to walk this world pretending that I'm agreeable and have no opinions or tastes that are not rubber stamped by society. I wanted to be whatever I am that makes me different from any other person on this planet. That took a decade.

During the time I was trying to figure it all out I was dating a person whose sole function in this world is to fit in and make sure no one ever finds out all the terrible things he does. Imagine how unsupportive he was with me when I was trying to be something other than a mold of what everyone expects. Yea, if you imagined no support, you were right. I moved through this time taking two steps forward and being dragged three steps back. I knew what I wanted but he wouldn't let me have it.

When I was finally able to break out of that suffocating relationship I finally found a person that supported me so fully that, had I dreamt of being supported, I would not have been able to fathom it in the way it turned out. Not even in my wildest dreams. I had no model for it in my life. Bryan Boles helped me be more me than I ever knew was possible just by holding my hand and never letting it go. He walked with me every step of the way and never asked me to be different.

I live like I want to live. I believe what I want to believe. I love who I want to love. I dress the way I want to dress. I spend my money the way I want. I say whatever I want to say. I do whatever I want to do.

The last thing on my mind is what anyone thinks about who I am. When you get this strong about who you are nothing anyone says, does or thinks will make a difference. You just shake it all off because you know that there is a little part of them that wishes they could have what you have and they are frightened they will never figure it out. You remind them that they are a shadow of what they could be and you make them worry that they'll always be that.

When someone says, "I could never get away with that" the thing they mean is they could never feel comfortable just being who they are. They are afraid of not fitting in. It does not have anything to do with me. It is a statement about how they feel about themselves. I am just that thing that reminds them. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 25

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm posting a Soul Pony post about gratitude that I would like for you to read. 

the mechanic's guide to gratitude

I read the book The Magic by Rhonda Bryne. It is an amazing book about learning to have gratitude in your everyday life. While I read this I finally recognized the way gratitude works. I wanted to break it down and share it with you here.

So, many of us, me included, start to feel disillusionment about the way the world works sometimes. If we keep up with world news we may start to think there isn't a lot of good in it. We may walk around in a cloud only able to see the bad. We may complain a lot or judge things harshly. So, what does gratitude have to do with this? Everything. Gratitude is the opposite of what I just described and by practicing it we will manifest more things to be grateful for.

When you decided to make gratitude a daily practice the first thing you have to do is decide to start looking for things to have gratitude for. Once you start looking (or keeping a gratitude journal) you will begin to see how much beauty their is in the world. It might seem like a challenge in the beginning but everyday lived grateful will make it easier day by day.

How does the shift occur that we all hear about when people talk about keeping a gratitude journal? In the third paragraph of this post I talked about how we get focused on all the negative things going on in the world. That my dear friends is a habit. It is a habit. It is a habit. How do you break a habit? Replace it with the desired way you want to be. How can we shift the habit of only seeing the ugly in the world? By deciding to concentrate on the good in the world. So, when we make gratitude part of our daily life we are really creating a habit to look for good.

I wish someone had told me that a long time ago. I'd read about keeping a gratitude journal and I'd think about how magical and transforming it could be but I never thought about what the practice actually creates. That transformation, turns out, is just learning a new behavior. If ya don't want to be a grumpy ass then learn to be a grateful ass.

Never mourn for what you've lost in life but instead be grateful for what you still have. Though mechanics are involved in that you can explain what happens in this shift, there is also magic. Give it a try and you will feel like someone waved the magic wand.

image from design love fest

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 26

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm just gonna ask you to read something from Soul Pony that I think is important.

I visit a lot of people in their homes and I hear a lot of stories. Some of them are tales of woe and others of triumph. After being in hundreds of homes and meeting hundreds of people on their own turf, I think it is safe to say there have been enough to be able to spot a trend if there was one. So, what do you think I've found. Well, it's a few of things.

I.

There are people in the world that will never be happy. They always see things from a victim mentality and from the perspective of lack. If you ask them any question you will get a negative response. You can send them your best worker, the one everyone loves and wants, and they will, at some point, ask you to never send them again. They will do this until they go through every good worker you have and then they will hit the bottom of the barrel and change providers. They will tell you they have the same problem wherever they go but they will still believe the problem is with everyone else and not of their own making. They never, for a second, appreciate anything or anyone. They wallow in the grief of their self-made unhappiness.

II.

There are people in the world that go through life and they take what is handed to them and they never ask for another thing. They aren't exactly happy or sad. It never really occurs to them that they have any power in the world. So, they never step up and never speak their mind. They follow blindly whatever they are told and are scared a lot of the time. They hope you won't take advantage of them but they fully expect that you might.

III.

There are people in the world that always find a way to be happy. They take responsibility for their lives and recognize the reasons they have to be grateful. Even when these folks lack the things they find very important to their happiness, they are still grateful for what they do have. They can find something good in any worker you send them. They will tell you all the wonderful things that have happened to them in their life. These people may be the sickest of the lot but they will refuse to lay down until they just cannot go anymore. They won't dwell on their sickness no matter how severe. The energy around them is contagious and when you talk with them you will not be able to stop smiling.

I think if you look at these three categories you will notice that age doesn't matter. Most people will fall in one. You have a choice. Do you want to be a I, II, or III?

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 27

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm just gonna ask you to read and do this meditation from Soul Pony that I think is important.

Please take time after you read this to sit for a brief moment. Close your eyes and visualize rainbows of light from infinity streaming into your head and washing through your body and expanding out from your entire body until it encompasses the entire world and all it's inhabitants. Feel your connection to all living beings while wishing them perfect love. Then pull that light back to your heart until your heart is filled and all of the light is held completely in your heart. Now, with a beautiful blue paint, mentally paint the opening shut to your heart that the light went into. Watch the shine of the light get smaller and smaller until it's only a pin point and continue until it is completely shut. Know that you walk with the love and light of the universe inside you.

Love and light to you, YoU special sOuL. 

Go forth in your day and shine.

Lesson 28

Make sure to complete your four everyday exercises along with today's class where I'm just gonna ask you to read something from Soul Pony that I think is important.

If I think about the way growing up taught me to perceive the world, I'd say that we don't have a lot of control over how things end up. I'd say that we can't help if we have money, we can't help if we find love, we cannot control if we will be happy, we cannot help if we get sick and we cannot help if we end up homeless. It all just happens and we have to accept our lot in life. There are a too many people to count who believe all of that but I'm not one of them. At the start of this paragraph I said that's the way I was taught but it's not what I believe.

The reason that things are the way they are for you is that you believe. The reason things are the way they are for me is because I believe. If we were always right about what we believe we'd never cross the path of someone who thinks we are wrong. We'd all just always be right. But we are not. Who gets to decide who is right? The answer is, the believer. As long as you believe something, it's going to be right whether it really is or not. 

The only way to grow is to accept challenge. Be willing to be wrong. Be willing to examine. Holding on tightly to what you believe will only stunt you. You cannot grow when you think you know all the answers or when you think there is only one answer to the question.

So are you a person who thinks that the life you have just happened to you? If your life just happened to you then that is your perception. If you believe this then life will just happen to you. If you don't like your life the way it seems to be happening to you then for a moment entertain that you can change that. 

Do you feel like you will always be alone? If you really don't want to be alone stop believing that you are. If you feel like you'll be alone you are probably more concentrated on yourself than anything else. View the world as an opportunity. Stop waiting. If you are in waiting mode you'll probably stay there. Don't go out to try to find someone. Just go out into the world with a mindset that is not waiting. Be of the mind that you are living a life you love and don't worry with the waiting. Details are not something you should bother yourself with. The details have got you in the place your are in now. The details are what you are concentrated on that keeps you locked into feeling alone. 

If you feel like a poser in everyday life then you are precisely like 80% of the population. The only thing that makes you feel this way is that for some reason you don't believe in yourself. It's not everyone else that doesn't believe in you but you that does not believe in you. Everyone else is too busy not believing in their own self to worry with you.

The best way to get out of the mindset that life just happens to you is to start today by living the life you want. No one will give you permission because they are waiting for their own permission.

What get's you excited? What do you like? What do you want? How do you want to live? What do you envy about others? If you can answer these questions you've made a significant step forward. So take your list of answers and step towards making these things happen. 

Step One: Strike a two minute power pose of your choosing.

Step Two: Go out and make one step towards making your life look like you want it to look. If you want to get in shape, start by going for a long walk. If you want to get your dream job, sign up for a class that might help you qualify, If you want to learn to dance, search youtube for dance moves and get up and try them. If you want to date, ask someone out (and I mean this for both sexes). If you want to have more money, start to save or look for a better job. If you want to write a book, shut this post, open MSword and start typing. If you want to be forgiven for things that you did in the past, forgive yourself and ask other's you've wronged to also forgive you. If you want to get well, start believing you can be well and make every move you can to be that way. If you want to be a winner, stop seeing yourself as a victim. If you want to be happy, do more things that make you happy.

Step Three: See that when you can accomplish one thing, you'll also be able to tackle the next. 

Step Four: There is no step four.

Step Five: Or five.

Go forth in your day and shine.