Thursday, March 5, 2009

Happy Coincidences

I like to think of happy coincidences as those moments in your life that just seem to fit in perfectly regardless of whether or not you knew they were coming.

I could even use the word kismet. Not quite fate, but more like everything is as it should be. You should be exactly where you are right now. You should be exactly who you are right now. The people and situations in your life are exactly as they should be right now.

Everything is perfect.

I'll use myself as an example.

I've always felt drawn to "New Age" type stuff. I use quotation marks because what really is new age? New age is old stuff, just new again because fresh eyes are finally open to it. Regardless...

I was the kid who dragged her parents into the health food store at age 8, completely spellbound by all the cool foods, spices and things that I couldn't pronounce. That was just what I liked.

I wanted to try veggie burgers before they were cool or even accepted.

I never questioned why or how the thought of health food stores appeared in my young brain, but I just knew that that was something that was me.

Fast forward 20 years and now I work in holistic health and nutrition. The once odd ball desire of mine to head off to a health food store is accepted as normal and the word "organic" is widespread and over-used.

Why is this a happy coincidence?

Because it was the beginning of an enlightening journey for me that brought me to the present moment.

Without that childhood desire, I don't think I would have started to re-learn about the things I loved as a child.

I always felt like I was a different child. Danced to the beat of my own drummer, so to speak.

I conformed, like a good kid, but somehow always kept at least a little of what made me unique.

But, like most adults, I became a product of my situations and life experiences and I forgot who I was at my core. I let myself get caught up in things that never deserved the years I gave them, let alone any time at all.

But that was perfect for me. I needed those experiences to be able to re-open my eyes to the coincidences that are happening all over my life now. Only now can I appreciate all the blessings that I have been given.

So I call them happy coincidences.

You may think of it as just strange coincidences. Like when you're thinking of someone or something and that person calls or the thing you were thinking of appears.

You might scratch your head and wonder what just happened, but I like to think that it meant to happen that way.

If we didn't think of coincidences are happy or good, then we would miss out someone or something really great. We can learn a lot from the experiences in our lives, but we need to keep an open mind and an open heart to do that.

It can be a lot harder than it seems.

So, try it today.

Keep an open mind and when you meet someone new or someone not so new, when you have a new experience or go through a particular situation, ask yourself, "What can I learn from this person, this place, this experience? What can I take out of this that is good and beneficial to me? How can I encourage things like this to continue happening OR how can I discourage this?

You have the choice. You decide how you are going to deal with all the happy coincidences that happen in your life.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Choices We Make Are More Important Than We May Have Ever Thought

For the last week or so, I've been having some very interesting conversations around the idea of "Choice."

We are all intelligent people so it shouldn't be a foreign concept when I say that we all have the capacity to choose everything in our life. Almost like a short order cook, our choices can immediately influence our surroundings and our current situation.

This sounds like it could be horrible, right?

Well, yes and no.

Being able to consciously make our own choices and decide for ourselves who and what we spend our time, money and energy on will, in effect, put all the responsibility of how and why our life plays out the way it does on us, YOU specifically.

We, therefore, cannot blame anyone else for how our life is going- not considering events and natural disasters outside of our normal control.

So what does that mean?

That means that I cannot blame you for me having a bad day. That also means that you cannot take credit for when something good happens in my life.

See how that works?

We create our lives with our choices so now the time has arrived for you to finally claim your life as your own.

You can say that your life is not your own- you have a family, you have a job or career (there is a difference), you have responsibilites, you have things that you HAVE to do.

I don't agree.

I believe that all of the above "limitations" are merely the residual effects of choices that we have made in the past.

Yes, you have a family. You chose, either consciously or not, to have that family and all that goes along with it.

Yes, you have a job or career, once again, you made that choice to have one because you wanted something or you were told it was what you HAD to do.

It all goes back to what you want to do, what you want to be and what you want to have.

You make the choice.

It is your decision.

It is your life.

It is time to reclaim the power of creating your life with the decisions that will take you from where you are now to where you'd like to be.

There's a problem though.

You have already put yourself onto a specific track. You have set course in a particular direction and are steadily plodding along towards that end point.

How do you get off?

Bad news- you don't.

Good news- it's never too late to make different decisions.

This makes me think of the movie "Groundhog Day." Bill Murray keeps making the same choices, the same decisions day after day, week after week and all he gets is the same exact thing he got the day before.

Does this sound familar to any of you?

You do the same thing, you get the same result.

BORING!

Is that the life you want for yourself?

Yes, perfect! Keep going!

No? Good, make the change now. You already know how.

Once Bill Murray was willing to change his usual routine, deviate from his everyday choices, then he was able to change the outcome.

What you need to do is to become more aware of your choices.

If you live your life without looking around, you will never see all the options open to you.

Likewise if you go through life with blinders on. You might miss the next greatest thing just because it was off the beaten path or just out of your line of vision.

So make your choices, but once you make them, own them.

Use your choices and decisions to create the life you really want. Or use them to create the life that someone else believes you should have.

This is your life. Live it the way you want, after all, it's all up to you.

It's in your hands. Choose wisely.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Thoughts on a Monday Morning

I celebrated my 31st birthday about a week and a half ago and I have to say that with the new year added to my age, I feel like I've been granted a little more wisdom.

Ah, yes, the joy of getting older and finally understanding more of the world around me.

But I've been doing a lot of thinking, a good amount of clearing and cleaning and seeing things in my life a little bit more clearly.

I also tend to feel that exercise helps me to think as well, maybe that's why I like marathons so much. I feel like I can go through the full range of my emotions through 26.2 miles. Maybe I should be counting how many times throughout the run I feel like jumping for joy, crying my eyes out or wanting to scratch someone's eyes out. I wish I was joking. : )

But I've learned that the little things in life are going to be the pieces of my life that are going to make the most difference.

Let me break that down.

I'm thinking that making a difference in other's peoples lives is going to be more important to me than anything else.

It's not going to be just about the dollar signs or just about who likes me for this or for that, but rather how I made them feel or how I made an impact on them.

So I know that I need to focus on things that are not going to benefit just me, but as many people as I can possibly reach out to.

Just some thoughts for today.