Lightening your load as you rise higher

Hello Friends,

As I was clearing clutter this weekend from my physical environment and my mind, I realized how often we carry loads that weigh us down, keeping us tethered to where we don’t want to be, like a moored hot air balloon that is eager to soar in the sky. Clearing the clutter of unnecessary or no longer useful things, beliefs and habits makes space for new and wonderful expansiveness to enter our lives.

In order to broaden our perspectives and allow bigger, better and more to come into our lives we must release small, limited and stinking thinking. A great idea pops into your mind and for a few minutes you actually allow yourself to imagine it coming true and how you’d feel, and you enjoy yourself. After that gloriously fun and inspiring few minutes you “come back down to earth” and feel silly for even thinking such a thing so you berate yourself, make a list of reasons why this would never work and then force yourself to forget all about it. Ugh, no wonder you feel stuck and like you’re going nowhere fast! Exchange pessimism for optimism, fatalism for hopefulness, and just be silly, have fun and laugh your butt off as often as you can. Keep replaying that dream in your mind and enjoy it. Make a plan – what would it actually take to make it happen? Then start taking baby steps – do the things that are within your means and control.

As you make the commitment to start taking steps towards your dream, ideas and opportunities will arise as if by magic to help you along the way. What you need will show up when you need it. Oh, and don’t be deterred by the naysayers or any stumbling blocks along the way, just keep your eye on the prize. All it really takes is a firm belief in yourself and your dream, commitment, a peaceful and joyful attitude, and lots of “unloading” along the way. Unload the disbelief, self-imposed limitations, self-loathing, unworthiness, lack mentality, people pleasing, resentfulness, jealousy, bad or unhealthy habits, clutter in your home or office, and the negative or dysfunctional people who do not contribute to your well-being but sure are good at taking. Whew – I feel so much lighter just writing that!

Mel’s Two Cents: Approach your dreams like children, they: know anything is possible; act as if their dream is already a reality; don’t hold grudges; haven’t been brainwashed into a mindset of fear, lack, prejudice and separateness; like to have fun all the time; and they trust in a higher power to take care of them. I’ll leave you with a few scriptures I meditate on frequently and a poem that simply electrifies me!

Until next time.

Mel

Matthew 18:2-5 (MSG)
“For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, “I’m telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you’re not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God’s kingdom. What’s more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it’s the same as receiving me.”

Luke 17:21 (KJV)
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you

Still I Rise By Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.