Stop and Smell the Roses

On a recent walk, I passed a neighbor’s house and a rose waved to me in the sunlight. I could not help it; I had to stop to sniff the beautiful scent of the rose. The rose gave me a magnificent gift that day, as it beckoned me to enjoy her beautiful aroma.

Another couple walking towards me saw what I had done, and yelled out, “That’s the spirit, stop and smell the roses, we never take time to that.” I joyously laughed and as they passed me, they too, stopped to inhale the beauty of the rose.

As I continued on my walk, I began to ponder the phrase stop and smell the roses. We often do not take time to enjoy simple pleasures. We live in such a hurried and harried society, running in many different directions at once. Mores the pity, that such a simple thing to do seemed like such a novelty that day.

I promised myself to make time for more moments like the one I experienced that day. I urge you to make a pledge today, to stop and enjoy the moment at hand and if you see a rose waving at you…Stop and say hello!

As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. ~Ben Hogan

Wealthy Beyond Compare

I had an interesting conversation with friends recently. As we were kvetching about the state of our personal finances, I said that I needed to work through money issues. My friend gently bitch slapped me into reality and told me how wealthy I was.

As I was forced not to look inside my wallet but into the core of my being, I came to the realization of how true it is. It is so easy to get sucked into the “Ain’t it Awful Club” and participate in the general lamenting of the economy and the ills of the world.

Truth be told it is much more difficult to buck that trend and stand in my truth. I am wealthy when it comes to knowing my purpose in life, pursuing my dreams, and living each day to its fullest.

Yeah, I am wealthy indeed. I thank God for the Abundance of knowing my true self-worth and I am blessed to have friends to call me on it when I steer off course.

Today, I declare to all of you I am spiritually wealthy, my cup overflows, and I give thanks and praise. Peace

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. ~ John Templeton

Wishing On Stars

Early this morning I had a magical experience watching the Leonid Meteor Showers. Breathtakingly beautiful, this meteor show was magical in the early morning hours. I was surrounded by pure peace, and I was able to witness the energetic cosmic bursts of light.

I first gazed upon this spectacular meteor show in 2001, when I had the opportunity to view them with my mother. She has since died and yet in the early quiet of the morn I felt her calming presence among the stars as once again, God put on his fireworks display.

As I watched the stars fall and listened to the quiet I was able to hitch my dreams and goals among those stars. As I lifted my eyes to the heavens, I knew that my dreams were shining as bright in my mind as they were in that pre-dawn sky. I Believe!!!….Do You?

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

If your heart is in your dream
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
As dreamers do

Fate is kind
She brings to those who love
The sweet fulfillment of
Their secret longing

Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true

¿Are You Somebody?

Recently, I taught a class and afterwards a student asked me, if I had resource name to back up a statement I made. I said, “Yes, that resource is me.” He then asked me if I could quote somebody who was famous, a celebrity, or well known. I reiterated, “yes, me.”

He was so shocked that I confidently stood beside my name and my statement. I said yes, I am somebody. You can choose to heed my words or not, the choice is yours. I am my credible source because the story is mine.

He was so startled that I said that I was somebody; he did not have a comeback. I thought to myself that so often we look for validation on who we are from other people.

Boldly and confidently, declare to the world

you know who you are.

You are somebody!

"I am larger, better than I thought. I did not know I held so much goodness."-Walt Whitman

Angels in Our Midst

When we least expect it, angels appear to get us through the murky causeway of life. Angels walk in human form and help us on our path. Whenever we think we are alone, their healing presence warms our spirits, our minds, and our hearts.

I am truly grateful for the angels who constantly step out, scoop me up, and embrace me in their universal message of love. The angels who walk among us have blessed me time and time again. Whenever, I have stepped out on faith and asked for God’s guidance and eternal blessings on what next to do…. An angel appears.

Angels are watching over all us and for that, I feel we are truly blessed.

Richard Smallwood Angels lyrics

Through dangers seen and unseen, there's protection all around.
Under the refuge of God's wings, security is found.
For there are angels watching you to keep you in all of your ways,
keeping you from stumbling, so don't be afraid.
God's appointed angels watching over me, angels watching over me.
Angels watching over me, angels watching over me.
Unseen hands, guiding me, through my storm and through my rain.
Healing hands, holding me, through the darkness of my pain.
Wings of love encamped around me, so I will not fear, for I can feel thier
presence hovering near. Nothing but... Angels watching over me All night, all
day, angels watching over me my Lord.
All night, all day, angels watching over me.
All night, all day, angels watching over me my Lord.

Angels watching over me.

Happy Earth Day!!!

In recognition of Earth Day, I ask you to do your part to make our world a better place. It’s up to all of us to take care of our planet.

The earth is yours so treat it gently with kind and loving care!

“The earth is what we all have in common.” Wendell Barry

Happy New Year

2009 Welcomes YOU! With your entrance into the New Year, you crossed over into a world of new promises, paths unknown, and a road to new horizons. May your year be filled with all your hope and dreams. Peace

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. ~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

Reflections

As we get ready to ring in the New Year, this is a perfect time to be reflective. How was your year? Did you manifest all your hopes and dreams? Or, were some of your dreams deferred?

The strength of your dreams is that there isn’t a time limit. You have the power of the universe behind you of unlimited time and space to turn your dreams into reality.

Whatever happened this year, make use of the life lessons you learned and get a jumpstart on the New Year. Use the power of the past to propel your actions for next year. I urge you to live your best year yet!

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. ~Hal Borland

Cast Your Bread Upon the Waters

Happy New Year! Rosh Hashanah the Jewish New Year began at sundown last night. I always love New Year Celebrations no matter what the culture may be. It gives us a time to stop and reflect on the past year and make affirmations on the new. Today a friend and I decided to celebrate in our own way. A new beginning.

We went to the beach and cast our bread upon the water and became one with the earth, water, sky, and all that is good in this world. Sharing our bread with the Sea Birds was amazing. When we started on the beach there was one lone gull. His cry to others that an abundance of food was being shared brought birds from a far to share in our bounty. (For a minute, it looked like a scene from the Hitchcock movie the birds)

It was a peaceful day to be one with the Universe. A day to start fresh and start anew. A New Year begins so that we may live life to its fullest and more abundantly.

Cast your bread on the waters: for you shall find it after many days (Ecclesiastes 11:1)

Breathing in an Upside Down World

This week if you listen to the news, you may instantly hyperventilate. The media is predicating the most awful atrocities to our financial situations. I realized that I had to turn the news off as I was working because I felt that I was mentally being abused by the media. YET everything we have learned about the Law of Attraction tells us we should remain positive. This question comes up a lot but how…..

Focus on the positive... Challenge the negative... Smile don’t cry… Yada, yada, yada … Sometimes it can feel like we are all used cars salesman (not that there is anything wrong with that). While the media is focused on the lack –focus on what you do have. Breathing is essential in times like these so…. Breathe.

If the world right now seems upside down, stand on your head if you have to and look right side up. No... I don’t have the answers about the situations that most Americans face. However, I do know this ….with energy shifting to the negative it is a must that you stay strong mentally and this too shall pass.

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. ~Erich Fromm

Focus the Energy

This week I went to a free workshop offered by James Arthur Ray who is a featured speaker in the movie the Secret. He was entertaining, and it is always great to leave a seminar with a new nugget or two. He talked about energy goes where attention flows.

That concept speaks to me on a deeper level. The whole idea behind the power of positive thinking is really what we choose to emphasis on in our daily lives. One of my friends this week was in a negative space and called me to chat. When she asked what I thought and I told her, she told me that I was too Pollyanna for her tastes.

It struck me that that her perception of Pollyanna was a bad thing and go figure I see it as positive. You see there is always something that will come up in our lives which could derail us from our plans and make us miserable if we choose. However, if we decide to focus the energy into the positive, more often than not, we will find the good in the situation.

The Sun rises every day of this you can be sure. Even if it cloudy and thundershowers are on the horizon, one thing I know to be true is that the sun will rise every day. Here comes the Sun, focus the energy and have a great day!

PollySandra

Dear...........

This week I had the pleasure of finishing a wonderful book called the Wednesday Letters by Jason Wright. I enjoyed it so much that it inspired me to write this blog entry on the lost art of letter writing.

When I was growing up I had 82 pen pals from all over the world. It was kind of cool, I had a big world map on the wall in my bedroom, and I had push pins in all the countries where my friends resided. I loved getting mail from friends all over the world. I loved sharing experiences about my life in the US and theirs from whatever country they were from.

I learned to love letter writing. It was a process to pick the right stationery, the right stamps, and even as to what color pens to use. As I found out when I was young, not to use red ink when I write because it perceived anger. You see, through letter writing, I became culturally aware of others and how we are all connected in the Universe.

Now that the world is so much smaller because of the internet, letter writing seems to be disappearing somewhat. As much as I love email, it is not the same as opening a letter from a long lost friend. So to all my friends out there this is for you.

How are you? I hope all is well. What’s up where you are? I am
well. Today is a great day because I get to connect with you.

Write Back Soon,
Sandra

Eat Dessert First

I know I know it goes totally against what your parents told you. But just think about it, dessert at the end of the meal is usually yummy, rich and puts a smile on your face. Right…..

Well if that is the case, shouldn’t everything that we do in life be like a really good dessert. Now all the healthy conscious people please don’t shudder. I mean it with the best of intentions. Life is to be enjoyed. We even make guilt an association with pleasure e.g. (guilty pleasure). Well today let go of the guilt. Take pleasure in the fact that you can live your best life by fully indulging in a bit of fun.

Often what we want to do feels naughty just because we are having fun. Not today. Today I charge you with doing what you feel with no guilt attached. For some it might be curling up with a good book on a Saturday afternoon, it could be taking the day off for a mental health day, stopping to wiggle your toes in the sand, or even just taking a catnap in the middle of the day.

Whatever your pleasure ….... Eat your dessert first and do something that you enjoy!

Mirror Mirror

How many of you remember the fairytale of Snow White?

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all?" to which the mirror always replies "You, my queen, are fairest of all.” And then she knew for certain that no one in the world was more beautiful than she. But when Snow White reaches the age of seven, she becomes as beautiful as the day, and when the queen asks her mirror, it responds: "Queen, you are full fair, 'tis true, but Snow White is fairer than you."

What is interesting about the fairytale is that the Queen looked to the mirror to assess her beauty. But when the mirror failed to tell her what she wanted to hear, she demanded that the “new” beauty be destroyed.

I see so many of us living out that fairytale daily. We look to the media: magazines, celebrities, television, and our peers to measure our self-worth and our beauty.

The true beauty of self lies within each of us. Each day, you should be able to see yourself in the mirror and reflect on the beauty of your spirit. When you recognize your own beauty, your own specialness, others too will see you as special. So try this affirmation….

Mirror Mirror, I tell the truth
This beautiful spirit you see is
proof
That each day I live the best I can be
My own beauty and self worth,
I proudly see!

Mine eyes have seen the beauty

Every day is a miracle of God’s beauty on this earth. A while back a fellow blog poster http://www.gosmelltheflowers.com/ posed the question about places we have visited. I return to that thought today as I think about the beauty of the earth.

I love to go to places where you can witness God’s beauty and see what man has been able to do long before technology existed. Last year I was in Argentina and was able to visit the Iguaçu Falls and I declare it is absolutely magnificent! Stories have reported that upon seeing Iguaçuu, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt reportedly exclaimed "Poor Niagara!

I also love the Mexican Pyramids, specifically The Pyramid of the Sun in the Teotihuacan and the Pyramid in Coba. These architectural ancient sites are not to be missed. After climbing to the top of the Coba Pyramid and looking below, I was in AWE at how our world was developed and who I am because of it.

There are so many places I could name and so many more places for me to go. To see beauty all around us is the joy in life!

For the beauty of the earth,
for the glory of the skies,
for the love which from our birth
over and around us lies;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

For the beauty of each hour
of the day and of the night,
hill and vale, and tree and flower,
sun and moon, and stars of light;
Lord of all, to thee we raise
this our hymn of grateful praise.

Words: Folliott Pierpoint Music: Conrad Kocher

Suppose It’s All Positive…

I was in a training class the other day, and one of the participants had a deficit mentality. He saw the negative in every hypothetical situation, that may never occur. I tried to make light of the situation by saying, “hey suppose everything turns out okay, you are excellent at what you do and it will all work out for the positive.”

To my chagrin, he stuck himself in the negativity corner and refused to come out and play in the sunshine. His answer to me was that, “nope I know these things happen and I prepare for the worse.” Oops.

So my challenge to you today is to suppose the good in life. Yeah, many of us have the opportunity of looking at the glass half empty or half full.

So choose a full life – with all the possibilities
that lie ahead.

¿Why are you special?

You know one of my favorite interview questions is to ask someone why they are special. People become dumbstruck or better yet they look like a deer caught in headlights. We can easily talk about our skill sets and why we are qualified for a particular job. But when we get right down to the heart of who we are, why you are special seems to leave us baffled.

Yet if you ask a small child, why they are special, they have zero hesitation and zero limitations to their answers. A child might tell you that they are special, because they can jump, their parents told them so, they are beautiful, they are smart, they know how to share, they can color, they can run fast, and the list goes on.

What happens to us, as we become adults that we can not even put together a list of what makes us special? The fact is that we are all unique and amazing individuals that God created us to be.

So I ask you this today…...... Why are you special?

Who will you be in five years?

You know for most of us that question seems incredibly far-fetched. As adults we are caught up in the trappings of time, money, family commitments, and thus are dreams are often on hold. If I said to you, what would you do if could be or do anything in five years.

Would you be able to answer that? Suppose I asked that same question and added, if money was not an obstacle and you could be or do anything in 5 years. Would your answer change?

For most of us the answer is resounding yes. Our dreams are only limited by the box that we keep them in …our minds. Open up your box and let your dreams soar into the imagination of the infinity.

Dare To Be The Person You Want To Be.

Set your goals as high and as unlimited as the stars.

Dream…………………..

New Year's Resolutions

Did you make a New Year's Resolution? We are two weeks into the New Year and statistics show that most of us have already given up the ghost. Our resolve is weakening as to the lofty goals and dreams we had on New Years Eve.

The reason that New Year’s Resolutions often fail is that we don’t visualize the goal that we have in mind. Do you want to lose weight? Rather than feeling tortured about that new gym membership you have, did you visualize what your ideal weight is? Do you want a new career or new job? Have you visualized your new office, what your coworkers look like or even more important who is your boss and who do you supervise?

You see the power of creative visualization is a blueprint to our innermost goals. When you are able to clearly see the end result and experience the feeling in your mind of what that outcome is you will inspire action and you have a greater chance of achieving your dreams.

Thoughts ► Feelings ► Visualization ► Actions ►Dreams ►Goals

"The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart - this you will build your life by, and this you will become." - -- James Lane Allen, As A Man Thinketh

One More Day

I read Mitch Albom’s book "For One More Day" recently. Then I watched Oprah and she had an emotionally charged episode about if we could have just one more day and it got me to thinking. If I could spend just one more day with someone, who would it be? Hmmmm.

When we knew my mother was dying, she had been ill for a while, I said to my sister that I wasn’t ready for her to die yet. My sister said, “When would you be ready,” and I told her that “I would tell God when I was ready.” Well she laughed and said, “So you are trying to micromanage God.” And I said yes!

Isn’t odd that most of us want to micromanage the Universe and to control what will happen and when. I suppose we all want that one more day to say the extra I love you or a heartfelt I’m sorry.

For one more day, I would love to tell all the people that I loved or who touched my spirit for a moment, what a great impact they had in my life and their life on earth mattered.