Ready for Something to Change

Determined to be Queen shares...

Change, as we all know, is inevitable. Sometimes we avoid it. Sometimes we wonder when it will happen again. Sometimes we just live every moment like that's all there is and we never have to stop and label what we're doing as change. We just DO it.

Blogging sometimes feels like labelling changes. Changes in perception. Changes in activities. Changes in relationships. Changes inside what feels like my soul.

I say "feels like" because, of course, the Soul is constant. I'm not so sure we can "grow" the soul at all really. Instead, I think what happens when we grow spiritually is that we allow more of our soul to show...or flow...through us.

The more we resist our soul's true nature, the more miserable we are: in body, mind, and spirit. We block the Source of our Being with our negative attitudes; our addictive or abusive behaviors; our daily intake of empty calories, and various other substances we could probably live without; heck, even with gossipping, telling white lies, or driving aggressively. You name it—we are experts at blocking the Love.

As amazing as the human organism is, or can be if we allow it to be, the Soul is much more amazing. And truly, how we treat our Soul—whether we block it's light and love, or whether we allow those things to flow unhindered—reflects through our bodies, our personalities, and everything else that we can call a part of the Self.

So the Self is really just an expression of the Soul—the Divine Inspiration within us.

I bring this up today because I've been blocking the light and love of my Soul in certain areas. We all do this to some extent. (Obviously, otherwise we'd be angels and archangels or some such radiant Being, I imagine!) We're all great at one area of personal development and usually at the expense of another area. I'll use myself as an example.

Lately I've been expressing my creativitity and I've been exercising my body and feeding it much better than I had previously (i.e. no fast food whatsoever), I've made lots of new friends, AND, I even quit smoking—that awful, awfully-mean-to-myself habit. Sounds great in writing, right? Absolutely. What that brings to light, however, are the other areas that need to come along for the joy ride.

I'll let you in on a little secret. Most of my blogs are peppy and positive, right? To the point that some of you might start thinking either, "Man, she's got it goin' on!" -OR- "Does this woman EVER have a problem?" Well why would I write about the tough stuff? It's much more satisfying to write of the triumph of overcoming the tough stuff. Why wallow around in the muddy parts in writing?

I started thinking it may not seem realistic to have all the happy, happy, joy, joy blogs with none of the major challenges. Plus, the major challenges ganged up on me once I started having so much fun. (But that's an entirely different story.)

So here's the secret. When I'm not writing, I'm dealing with challenges. See how much empty space there is on my blog lately? Uh-huh. Challenges, thank you very much. And I say challenges now because I know better. It's all part of the changes that happen incessantly in a life being lived. What I'm still working on, a little bit, (ok, a lot), is a quicker recognition of the positive value of the challenges that really go for my gusto, if you know what I mean!

We all have those special little issues that seem to lay us out flat faster than we can say, "Halleluiah," right? I call them sticking points. You know, those things that seem to happen just when you think you've got it all under control (uh-oh! time for a lesson in letting go and letting God!). It's like emotional fly paper and you just struggle and struggle and you never can seem to get free of it, right?

Of course we all have those things, or maybe just that one thing, that throw us for a loop and remind us we are human, fallible, imperfect....well, you get the idea.

But maybe you don't have that feeling any more because you're an expert at "letting go and letting God." I salute you my friend. I would really like to choose the path of peace for myself too, but as of yet, I keep choosing the fly paper from time to time!

BUT. There's always a but. You know that!

Make no mistake. It's a choice. One of my greatest friends has reminded me for the past ten years that happiness is a choice, and I seem to have short-term memory loss in that part of my brain. And I'll tell ya, sometimes, when I am in the throes of my self-loathing and my Eeyore mentality, I really kinda resent hearing that it's a choice. (Yes, yes, all you Tom Cruise haters out there, sometimes medication is necessary, but mostly we make ourselves sick.) I just want to blame it on anything but me. Don't you? Sometimes it's way too tough to admit responsibility for my own happiness or lack thereof. Like it or not, though, it's true. I always have the choice.

So sometimes when I feel all cranky like that, I allow myself a day of sulking and say, "Tomorrow, after you rest, you'll pick yourself up and dust yourself off and get going!" It really helps to give myself permission to sulk, but to put a time limit on it. And really, sometimes it is really just resting. We live in a way-too-busy world, and sometimes we just need a break. I imagine Patrick Swayze as "Johnny" sticking up for me to that smarmy, slave-driving, rich-kid boss, saying, "She's taking a break Neil. She needs a BREAK!" That makes me feel a little better right away actually.

So hey, if you're like me and the holidays are as depressing as they are joyful and you feel like you don't know which way is up, imagine Patrick Swayze telling your family and friends that you need a break and then TAKE one. A REAL break. And give yourself a time limit. It might only be a two hour nap. It might be a two-week vacation. Listen to your heart. It knows what you need. And struggling through with a fake grin on your face is just another way that you block the true love and light that is always in your soul, waiting for you to let it flow.

When we are in alignment with our spirit, our soul, everything else takes care of itself. Are you ready for something to change? Are you ready to choose light and love? To choose happiness and peace?

Once you do*, you'll always have enough Self to share with others.

Happy Holidays Y'all!
Love, Nicole

*Warning: This is not a one-time choice. It is recurring. Daily is a good start, but, more often, it's moment to moment. The choice is always yours and there are always choices! :)

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Standing on Something Special

Determined to be Queen shares...

Recently I read a line in my favorite daily devotional book and my eyes stopped and my brain revved and whirred in the pause. It went something like this:

"We are standing on a hill of diamonds, and we are looking for the gold mine beyond the next ridge."

We say "diamonds are forever" and "worth your weight in gold" so it's no wonder that when I first read the line, I just didn't get it.

I thought it was a win-win kind of thing. There you are, standing on all that long-lasting stuff, like building your house upon the rock, setting your sights on the gold—of accomplishment, of experience, and yeah, sure, of value.

Nope. Unh-uh.

What Anne Wilson Shaef, author of Women Who Do Too Much, says is that we don't see the forest for the trees. In other words, we go striving for what we already have, yet fail to recognize. So in this particular case, she suggests that, all things being equal—like diamonds and gold—we tend to go searching for the mere hopes of finding the richness we, in fact, already possess to excess. It's easy to see that a hill of diamonds is a ready resource of measurable proportions, whereas rooting around for a gold mine which would then require extraction efforts, in the face of the guaranteed fortune in front of us, would be a titanic waste of time, energy, and life itself.

It reminded me of what I said the other day, in my other blog, about not being consciously aware of the magnitude of the gift of the human body, mind, and spirit. It's a hill of diamonds we stand on quite frequently, looking off into the distance to find those perfect accessories to go with it. Face it, we all do it. We ask ourselves, "What good is it to be trapped in this body if I can't have/do/be that?"

Ok, now I'm not saying that we can't take our human organism out for a drive and see what she can do. No, what I'm seeing as the distinction is that yearning that we beat ourselves up with. The literal, "What good is it?" The idea that what we have right now isn't good enough and what's the point anyway? It's the difference between following the joy and the passion in your heart and being driven by wild desire (or being driven wild by desire) for something that seems unreachable--but that's either because we expect perfection or we want instant gratification, or both!

I'll use myself as an example.

I love to dance. Now, at 37 years of age, I take dancing lessons. (You hear the judgment already, right?) And boy is it ever easy to sit back and watch people who have been dancing for five, ten, or even twenty years or more and think, "Well heck, I kinda suck! Will I ever learn this stuff so I can dance as effortlessly as they seem to?" (Or forget watching...try dancing with an experienced partner and having these thoughts come racing in when you inevitably flub it up!)

But if all I focus on is the end result and I allow myself to be discouraged because I don't have it right at this instant, then I miss out on the joy of dancing now. The fact is, I dance like someone who has been taking lessons for less than a year. And that's the truth...it's just a matter of fact. I have to allow for the journey. Right?

Repeat after me: "Life is the journey, not the destination." (Have we all heard this enough times now that it's about as "out of the box" as that worn out tag line itself?)

And I have to say that I dance much better when I don't think about doing it perfectly but rather let myself feel the dance...to be the dancer, dancing. (And I won't even get started on how my golf swing improves when I just do it!)

But it's so easy to forget the diamonds under the soles of our shoes (I nod to Paul Simon) as we trudge behind the pillar of clouds in the distance that always remain in the distance. The secret to loving the heck out of our lives is to live them right now. To find the perfection in each moment. To just "be" our way along the path.

That's what we're really looking for anyway. The hill of diamonds is there for us whenever we live right from where we are at any given moment. It's not out there in a land far, far away. It's here. And now.

Still not sure what that means? It's taken me a good ten years or so to really understand this idea for myself. Now I'm in the practicing phase. Are you practicing?

On that note, I would like to share a quotation with you from one of my favorite inspirational authors, Mr. Mike Dooley:

Live your dreams now, to any degree that you can. With every purchase. Every decision. Every hello and goodbye. Every assignment. Every conversation. Every meal. Every morning, afternoon and evening. And never, ever, ever look back.

Really.

Go on.

Do it now, and have FUN!!! :))


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Something Wonderful Happens... When I Say YES to Myself

Testing...1-2-3...


Did you hear me?

Really. Something wonderful happens!

Like what you ask? You want specifics? Well, let's see...

About a month ago, you may remember, I told myself, "YES, you may now take classes that are just for your own personal enjoyment."

The next day I quit smoking.

Just like that.

Wow, right?

I also went from being a stay-at-home-do-nothing-all-day-pick-up-my-kids-cart-them-around-then-do-more-nothing kind of a woman to a...

are you ready for this?

...get up, get ready, drop kids at school, go to class, eat homemade lunches, pick up the kids, run errands with them, cook dinner, go out to dance class etc., go to bed by midnight, get up and start all over again kind of woman. I even get up and do stuff on both of the weekend days now too!

I take three different dance classes, two art classes, a Saturday morning golf class, and a phys-ed class with cardio and machine weight workouts. This former smoker can now run a whole mile (on the treadmill) without breathing hard, and, ok, so I'm still pretty wimpy on the weight machines, but I am more toned already and I've only gotten to use them four times so far!

Can you say, "Halleluiah"?

Amen Brothers and Sisters!

So yeah...really...something PLUM WONDERFUL happens when I say YES to myself! :)

But the key here is that these are things that I have wanted to do, but have avoided doing. Please don't think I'm saying that YOU have to start working out or pursuing your creativity for wonderful things to happen. (Although, I have to say, those are pretty great things to try if they are on your "list"!!!)

You can do anything that starts with allowing yourself to do some of the things you've thought about but then said, "Pish-posh, that's silly. I ________________ !"(Insert appropriate phrase here: am too old, am too busy, am too serious, am too just-about-anything really; or the "nots"—am not talented enough, am not tall enough, am not smart enough.)

That's the secret—no more naysaying yourself! The desires of your heart whisper in your mind and you immediately tell them flat out, "What are you? Nuts or something?" And so you plod along until someone says with a sparkle in her eye, "When's the last time you felt joy? BLISS? Perfectly wild and utter abandon?" And you think, "Gee, I don't know."

It's not "idealistic" and it's not "Pollyanna" to plan for joy in your life. It's the difference between existing and truly LIVING! And if you haven't watched Pollyanna in a while, I highly recommend it! You'll remember that it's so so so much easier to smile and give of yourself than it is to frown and hide. And you'll remember how sorry you felt for all the "crabby" folks in the movie, and how you were sure you'd never be like them. (Ok, perhaps I'm projecting. But still...it's a great movie!)

And so that's it. Joy enters when fear (or denial, or judgment) walks out. So many times we don't realize that we're afraid to live. We're holding our breath. Biding our time. Waiting in the wings. Hanging by a thread. Balancing on a wire.

So breathe.
Go now.
NOW!
Let go.
Jump!

The most wonderful thing you could ever do for yourself is to give yourself permission to live the life that whispers to you. That still, quiet voice knows what you want and what will make you feel joy...what will make you feel alive...what will create a life of bliss.

Now if you just read that last part and you heard, "Yeah, right. She sounds like an airy fairy. Doesn't she know life isn't a bowl of cherries? Sometimes it's the pits!!!" Well then, my friend, you need to do something wonderful for yourself. Say YES to your guiding voice and say NO! to that censor that keeps you from "mov[ing] in the direction of your dreams."

Say YES to yourself!

Hold your prism up to the light.

Let it shine!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

There's Always Something to Choose (From)

Determined to be Queen shares...

Well faithful readers, I'm back! And from the title, you should deduce that I've been making choices that don't have anything to do with blogging—or do they? :)

This has been the summer of choices, my friends, and some of those choices have thrown me for a loop...or two. But the nugget of truth that I've been searching for the words to express since it dawned on me is this: there is always a choice. Always.

Now I already knew this, but, as with most startling revelations, I hadn’t known it as viscerally, as deeply, as soulfully as I knew it every day of my three week visit back home on good ol’ Cape Cod. And even after those weeks of watching moments unfold with wonder, I still forgot when I got home.

Becoming the Queen of my domain is hard work!

I’ve been making all kinds of conscious choices for months now and for the very reason that I acknowledge that I have so many choices, I often feel completely overwhelmed! So finding the still, quiet place inside my heart and mind where I can discern which choice to make has been my life’s work here lately. It is very quiet and often lonely work, and it isn’t always something I want to write about.

I’ve learned that I write to think things through and that my ideas about what a “writer” is and does are finally catching up with how and why I write. I have discovered that when I tell just one of my friends, in an email, how I feel, I don’t feel the need to blog. But at the same time, I’ve discovered that perhaps I want to write a new kind of blog. And it may look exactly the same on the outside, but on the inside, I’ll be writing it from a different place and for different reasons.

And it might just have to be another blog altogether. In fact, I started writing an entry at the beginning of the month called “Low Pressure Area” and I was going to post it on my old personal blog, but even that just felt like this, and explanation of why I hadn’t been blogging. Well, the reason is simple. I’ve been putting my life back together like a puzzle and I still don’t know where all the pieces will fit together or IF THEY WILL, and I just haven’t wanted to talk about it until I knew more.

That’s all. Simple. I’ve been giving myself back to me and it’s been good!!!

So hopefully, like I said, I’ll be writing about this new trajectory of puzzling my life back together because I think I’m ready to talk about that for a while. And it may not be that profound, but I think it will be just fine. I hope you agree.

So here we go! My kids go back to school next week and SO DO I!!! I’m finally doing what I’ve said I have wanted to do for the last ten years. I will be exploring my own interests and creativity. Just for its own sake. To play. To experience some of that joy that Julia Cameron has been telling me about these past twelve weeks in her book, The Artist’s Way.

But more about that later!

PS: I did end up finishing and posting "Low Pressure Area" and if you're interested, you can find it here. I put it on that blog because there are more details of a personal nature! Shhhhh!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.