Your Very Best Life

Stand firmly in the space of honor.  Celebrate who you are and who you are not….. Commit to yourself right this second that you will NO LONGER settle.  Not in your career.  Not in your friendships.  Not in love.  Not in life.

If “it” makes you feel “less than”….consider it’s time to give “it” up and let it go.

Risky?  Maybe.

Scary? Likely

Worth it?  Absolutely…Your life depends on it.

I guarantee you, whatever is on the other side, is better than be burdened with waking each morning with a sense of misery and disdain as you go to work at a job that you despise.

I promise you, it will be better to be alone, than with a lover that does not cherish and adore you….has it ever felt amazing to be someone’s 2nd choice or worse yet, invisible?

I assure you, it will be better to let go of toxic friendships with those whom only encourage and support dreams and lives as big (or usually as small) as their own.

let your light shine…Bright. BIG. Blinding.
You deserve it you know…

07 White Christmas

I am sitting here on this snowy Christmas Eve morning in my living room, listening to the soft sounds of Christmas music, and enjoying the warmth of the fireplace and the sparkly glow from the lights on the tree.

For some, this is truly the most wonderful time of the year…celebrations abound, joy and cheer overflow with friends and family, the uninhibited giggles as little ones gaze upon the gifts under the tree ~ wondering if they will hear Santa as he magically slips in during their sweet slumber.

This day of the year has always been about magic for me… for as long as I can remember.  Since my birth, I believe there was only a single Christmas Eve that was not spent at Grammy & Bumpy’s house.  Mama and I would pack up the car, and the 90 minute drive would seem endless.  We would pull into the driveway, and it was as if mother nature had created the scene straight out of a Thomas Kinkade painting.  The enormous pine trees beautifully flocked with crystal snow… the horses in the pasture, who would run along the fence as we drove in, their winter coats thick and full, the lights in the trees in the front the the house, all leading up the moment when the front door would open wide when they saw us drive in, and the smells of Christmas, and family, and Tradition would envelop me in a the warm hugs of their arms.

After church, the rest of our family would come back to the house, uncles and aunties and cousins….our family tradition on Christmas Eve has always been Hors d’Oeuvres for our meal, usually a little champagne toast, and wonderful conversation and laughter as we catch up and talk about what is happening in our lives, the world, and reminisce about things we remember from when we were young….

When the excitement was too much to bear any longer, we would all move to the living room and the fire would crackle, and we would say a prayer, or read a special story, and then, the sounds of paper tearing and squeals of excitement filled the house.

On Christmas morning, when I was a little girl, Bumpy would take me up on the roof (it was flat!), and to my amazement there were always sleigh tracks, tiny hoof prints and either a tiny little halter or a jingle bell or two that was “left behind”…..   That, was pure MAGIC.

As a mommy, it makes my heart full to pass on some of that magic to my little girl…. wouldn’t you know ~ last year, “Donner” happened to “throw a shoe” when Santa’s sleigh landed on our deck…. thankfully, it was covered with magic Christmas glitter, and it caught Madi’s eye glistening in the sun.

I know that for some, this is the hardest time of year, missing loved ones who are no longer with us, longing for tradition and connection but spending the holidays alone, grieving the loss of a marriage and feeling as though there is an empty space in their heart.  It is for you, I share this next wish….Know that those who are not here are here in spirit, and live on forever in the love that you had for them…when you look into the night sky, see them in the stars, as they twinkle and shine bright in the darkest dark, they are there…..loving you right back.  When we give love, we open up our hearts to receive love.  When we comfort another, we open up our spirits to receive comfort ourselves.  When we create magic where there was none, we open up our life to see the magic all around us.

Wherever you are on this day, however you are spending this night, when you awake tomorrow morning, let your heart be filled with love, your spirit soft with comfort, and be present to the magic in your life…..

Merry Christmas from my heart to yours….
I am sending you love and magic

Always,
~R

I found myself up in Northern Minnesota (very Northern…48 miles to the Canadian border northern).  We rented a cabin that sat directly on the majestic Great Lake Superior.  The water crashing against the rocks just below the deck was an amazing sound….familiar like the waves of the ocean, but instead of the soft, warm, lull, these waves had an icy, cold, almost aggressive presence.  The 25 degree temperature change from the city was semi-shocking, but the moment that the cabin door opened to a crackling wood burning fire in the fireplace, it was like a surprise treat that you didn’t realize you were going to get.  Settling in,    getting unpacked, plugging in the chargers for the various devices that need charging….I noticed that my Iphone said “No Service”.  Hhmm… well, no big deal, likely, I will turn it off, turn it back on, and it will reset to the network up here.  Not so much.  Maybe if I go stand out on the deck, it will find it’s signal.  Nada.  Ok, I know, I will walk up the beautiful tree-lined hill of the driveway, as the dense forest of trees surrounding the cabin must be blocking the tower.  No dice.   After the initial feeling like my chest was a little tight, my breathing a little labored, and my anxiety showing up in  that plaguing feeling of what if someone is trying to reach me, and they need something, and I don’t know that they are trying to reach me, and and and and ….

wow.

Hours of uninterrupted time, to walk through nature, capture moments in time with my camera, snuggle Madi on my lap reading books, no status updates, no tweets, no emails, no texts, no voice-mails.

Just being present, and totally in the moment….completely disconnected from the strings of technology, and extraordinarily connected by the strings of the heart……….. ♥ ♥ ♥

How many times in your life have you looked back on something and thought, why didn’t I just go for it? Maybe it was an investment opportunity, or adding extra square footage to your home, Could have been finding a fire-sale to an island somewhere last minute and jumping on a plane the next day, or saying No to another meeting and Yes to spending some time precious time with your 5 year old. So often we get hyper focused on one aspect of cost, and completely loose all sense of balance with it’s counterpart. Sometimes, RISKY is where life happens. (I’m not saying dangerous, certainly I don’t advocate driving backwards down a road with your eyes closed at midnight….or anything that may remotely resemble something as crazy as that!) I am talking about that feeling that you get when your intuition is trying to tell you something. Too often, we are so busy listening to all the “noise” (CNN, talk-radio, stock market, media frenzy, swine flu, bird flu, world is ending, blah, blah, blah) that it is impossible to hear the whisper of our own inner voice. For some, that statement will illicit anger and an intense urge to share why that is so “irresponsible” and not “realistic” and “living in a fantasy world”. I would invite you to consider that it is quite the contrary. I am clear that it is my responsibility to deal in hope and not despair, give people an opportunity to dream again, rather than extinguishing the vision they have for their life. I believe that we all have the ability to create our reality, and that it has almost nothing to do with who happens to be the Commander in Chief, what the stock market is doing, or what the current state of the economy is. I am in no way insinuating that the state of the union, the state of the global economy, the 3.3 million lay-offs that have occurred already this year are not real. They absolutely are real, and it is because of that reality, and the new economy that we live in, that now, more than ever, is the time for people to stop living life ‘as they always have’ going along with the “crowd” and start taking control and living life as they’ve always hoped to. We all have moments in our lives that we wish so very much we could go back and change. This is where the “true cost” lives. In the grand scheme of things, was working overtime, or picking up an extra shift worth missing out on a grandparent’s last days on earth? In the big picture, what costs more…spending $500 (that you could certainly use to pay any one of a long list of bills) to get away for 3 or 4 days to a beach with a book and re-charge, re-connect, re-plenish, -or- does NOT taking the time to hit pause and regenerate have a much higher price tag in the end? Sometimes, when we aren’t willing to be quiet enough to hear the whispers, we find ourselves having to get the message over loudspeaker. Unfortunately, for some, that shows up in the form of a disappointed child, an “unexpected” end of a relationship, depression, anxiety, or, worse…death. What is the point of this life if you aren’t living it? “Someday” may never come. You may never have “enough” in savings, or your 401k (if you even have a 401k to speak of anymore), you may never feel like you “have the time”. You may feel as though you haven’t “earned” it, and that if you work really hard, then, when you “retire”, you can then live out your life’s dreams…grab that bucket list, and start checking things off…. We don’t know what the future holds, we can’t predict what life will be like when we hit that “retirement age”, will you be well enough to travel the world? Will you be able to go back in time and re-capture that first 80 degree day in May when your children were young, and wanted so much to spend the day with you in the warmth of the sun, but…you had so much “to do”….maybe next time? We don’t know when our time on Earth is up. We can’t control that. We can however, control today, and what we do today, can determine much of what happens tomorrow. There is a time for everything, truly, there is….our job, is to be open enough to hear what time it is right now.