HEART'S CRY

How can I describe the feelings wreaking havoc on my mind and heart right now? The passion and incredible respect and pride and grief. Now is my time to weep. To mourn. To celebrate. To learn and to grow. We just returned home from a mission trip with Royal Family Kids Camp. Over thirty on site staff, over twenty special visitors, teams of people before, during and after camp volunteering hundreds of hours, thousands and thousands of dollars... all to give children the opportunity to know they are loved and experience a thousand moments that matter! Here are just a few. To experience love and the amazing outdoors. To touch dead bees, leaves, flowers, bugs, snakes, dirt and explore the wilds of the plains and learn about creation To drive ATV's and ride horses To swim and have massive water fights To make string art, sensory bottles, spin art, paint, duct tape and draw to their heart's content To climb a rock wall To play GA GA BAll and shoot arc...

The Audacity to Walk My Own Path Setting goals is exhilarating. Following through? Thats another story. Accepting my gifts my intuition, vision, strengths, and the desires placed on my heart feels like an act of audacity. Denying them? That feels easier. Sabotaging them? That feels like second nature. So the days slip by, filled with busyness but not progress. A dream sparks. An idea fuels my soul. A simple phone call could set everything in motion. I take a step forward, maybe even two. And then without warning something inside me trips me up. I picture her: A vivacious, enthusiastic young girl runs down the path, arms raised, eyes shining with passion. The wind and sun on her face fuel her. She climbs the hills with exhilaration, undeterred by the challenge. She is fearless. She is free. She holds joy with both hands and chases her dreams with abandon. Then she stumbles. She falls hard, face-first into the dirt. A crowd gathers. Their laughter is sharp, their eyes filled with taunts ...

A highway meanders and drifts over gently rolling hills and valleys. Even in the very isolated Western Nebraska I love to travel, there are opportunities to stop and take a break. If I had an emergency, eventually someone would come by and they would help me.   It feels like a safe and predictable way to travel through life. One thing I know about myself is I love to travel the back roads. It's the gravel and dirt roads that lead to the best destinations and fills my need for adventure, exploration and challenge. My heart craves the sense of uncertainty, challenge and uncharted territories. To try new ways. To look on a landform in the horizon and find a way to reach it. The past two years, my life has been a whirlwind of travel and people and learning and change. I catch a glimpse of the past as I hold tenaciously to the rope staked to my home and family keeping me grounded. I've learned how unacknowledged fear and insecurities can leave us strande...

Today's (o.k. yesterdays) is to teach something.  I am studying positive reinforcement from a variety of disciplines and perspectives. Did you 80-95% of the thoughts you think are naturally negative?  Is this the way you want to live?  If the average number of daily thoughts range between 40,000 and up and we know it is up to us to renew our mind and change our brain; do you agree this is the place to begin? I am not a positive affirmation kind of girl. It seemed fake to me and I could never do it authentically.  However, I have learned to change the stories I"m telling myself (which is pretty much the same thing) such as "that is so unlike me."  I would prefer re-framing as a strategic approach.  Choosing liberating versus limiting thoughts to dwell on.  Choosing to believe the positive intention of those around me.  I honestly believe most people are very good and want to know me and be nice to me.   I choose to believe th...

Freedom is a core value for me. As I think about what it means to me, I wanted reflect on others' definitions and quotes. To take the time to understand our core values helps us have to resolution to follow our path.  Merriam Websters defines freedom this way : the quality or state of being free: such as a : the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action b :  liberation from slavery or restraint or from the power of another :  independence c : the quality or state of being exempt or released usually from something onerous <freedom from care>d :  ease , facility <spoke the language with freedom>e : the quality of being frank, open, or outspoken <answered with freedom>f : improper familiarity g : boldness of conception or execution h : unrestricted use <gave him the freedom of their home> Freedom means opportunity, flexibility, living with abandon, adventure, ability, auton...

Today's challenge is to write a list.  Any list.  Where to begin?  Deep breath.  With support from a wonderful coach, I am trying to think about my challenges differently.  How can I use my strengths to support those areas I need to work on?  One of the areas of extreme challenge for me is around details.  My coach encouraged me to re-frame and amazingly I have found this powerful!  You see, I am a big picture person.  I long for the whole picture and seeing how items connect and link together. This list will be around creating a system and procedure for these details.   Scheduling Scheduling meetings with individuals and teams Scheduling driving time Scheduling time for planning, development and follow up Scheduling time for thinking Scheduling time for billing Scheduling timelines Scheduling phone calls Scheduling time for development of training Writing narratives and next steps Writing follow up emails Writin...

Today's challenge is to write about what we know.  To describe in detail a very important day in my life.  I thought about 1989 when I married my amazing man.  Then 1991, 1993 and 1996 when I understood a mother's love.  Or what about my adoption day or graduation or the first day we brought Frosty (our mare) home.  Then I knew what I needed to write about. The day I met my birth Dad for the first time. It's a long story and a fairy tale at that.  To write about my first day, you have to know how amazing all of my parents are to make this first day possible.  Having grown up for parents is a really good thing! The phone call. I called him.  Finally. I had his phone number.  I had talked to his mom and my new found sister. (He told me later he felt he didn't have the right to enter my life and waited for me to call.  His Vicki said he was really anxious and didn't wait patiently!  I had looked for him over the years without...

Free writing.  What a concept.  Writing for the joy and the freedom of writing. Silencing my inner critic.  This nasty judge.  The judge with the rolled eyes and furrowed eyebrows who looks at me out the corner of one eye. The "are you stupid" look or the "what are you thinking" look. The limiting beliefs rattling around in my head.  My English teacher who told me writing was not for me.  I am too verbose and too unyielding with words.  My friend's words who said, "writing is not for everyone."  The biggest thief of joy and courage...me. So today I write.  Just what is in the two inch picture frame of Anne Lamont's book "Bird by Bird."  I have that frame.  It sits on the edge of my desk....in the other room.  As much as I love my new "old" desk, I find the window by my dining room table a joy. It is dark, cloudy and news of snow.  However, three fat and spunky squirrels and about 150 small birds are feasting on b...

Five hundred words may not sound like much or seem as if it is a huge challenge.  So, why is it a big deal?  Joining a blogging commitment to write 500 words a day for 31 days scares me to death.  Why?  I want to be a writer.  There.  I said it.  The minute I say it, my stomach hurts.  An intimidating and terrifying endeavor.   I have always written in a journal.  Scribbled, doodled and wrote.  At times I have felt as if my mind couldn't process all of the words and ideas and dreams until I put my pen to paper.  However, my mind works in a series of pictures and associations and in the linear fashion.  I struggle with transposing thoughts, letters and words at times.  When I'm tired, my family teases me as I struggle to fill in the blanks. Reading is a desire that drives me.  As a young child, I longed for more stories and more books.  It was as if I would starve, if I could not read.  The b...

This morning is my scheduled weekly review.  Where I am supposed to disconnect, reflect and recharge and review my life plan. Sometimes I find myself going down a road, I don't want to be.  I never planned on.  In fact, I had been cruising through life enjoying the view until I suddenly realized...this is not where I am supposed to be. My old operating procedure would have been to shift in to a higher gear and race mindlessly into a wall. Instead, today I am pulling over.  Pulling onto a flat shoulder at the top of a hill.  Getting outside myself to take a long look forward and backward.  Taking some time to accept where I am and my own state of mind.  Pulling out my map...life plan, I consciously choose my next steps carefully.   Going back is not possible.  Getting out of the consequences is not an option.  However, moving forward mindfully and intentionally is. I will follow through with some commitments I made without...

It was a different world and a different time.  A place where time forgot and the world did not know.   My childhood.  The great before. "Let's go get lost in the breaks," I would pronounce as we galloped on our horses across the plains.   The ridges were easy as one could see for miles upon miles.  The breaks and draws weere mysterious and exciting. Our horses would pick the best way down to the bottom of the draw and we "tried" to get lost.  The truth about a draw and the breaks, however, was it never got lost.  So being in it, always took us to where we knew we were.  The same place.  We would ride up and down and explore every inch and never get lost. Once, it began to storm and we were in the far breaks.  In fact, a few hours from home.  Knowing how dangerous lightening was (Mom was terrified of it) we got off the horses and took off the saddles, found a hollow in the shale in a great deep break....

These voices in my head are entrenched.  Those connections and neural pathways created in my mind as a little girl are still strong enough to step back in as my default message if I'm not intentionally aware of it.   Physical and spiritual forces attack when my guard is most down.  When I'm tired, vulnerable and feeling insecure.   When my focus is askew. Before I know it, I'm up in the middle of the night with these embarrassingly self-absorbed crazy voices in my head.  Loud and disruptive. "Who am I to share my story?  ...to help? ... to lead?" "You are a failure and don't have what it takes to do this job." "You annoy people.  You overwhelm people." "You should be further along." "You are too out there and say what you think." "Who do you think you are?" "You can't do it." "You are weak and not strong enough mentally,emotionally and physically." If I am not careful t...

We are in the dead of winter.  Smack dab in the middle of it.  And I struggle.   My energy seems to gel and sink like the sap in the trees and the perennials around my house.  I look wistfully out my back window to the seemingly dead tall grasses.  The big blue-stem has been flattened with the last ice.  The many kinds of sparrows and house finches relish i n the many hiding places the vegetation offers them. Experience and wisdom reminds me of the life under the hard and frosty soil.  I know it will soon be awakened with the spring and I will have a job of keeping the weeds at bay.  Before I know it, I will be traipsing the early morning hours away in my little yard.  Tucking a vine here or supporting a stem there.  Getting lost in the ordinary. My beds look messy with left over vegetation.  Dead branches, vines and vegetation haphazardly spending their days.  "Why not cut them back now?" my husband asks....

Did you know research is finding it takes at least 66 days to change a habit.  According to new research by Phillippa Lally and colleagues from the Cancer Research UK Health Behavior Research Centre, the old 21 days thinking was a myth with little research. (Check it out here.  http://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/news-articles/0908/0908040) You can't imagine my relief to learn this. In my quest to lose weight and change my eating behavior, I have failed miserably.  After 40 pounds lost, I stopped being intentional and focused.  Christmas and New Years have come and gone and I am still in drift with this number 1 goal in my life. Knowing, I'm not a complete failure in turning around 47 years of eating habits in the lofty 21 days I had heard it takes...makes me feel as if getting back on the wagon is indeed possible. Something about my brain seeking perfection and performance and leaving me trapped in fight, freeze and flight when "I can't do it," or when I have fai...