Be.Here.Now. Paint this moment, however, you would like it to be. Try to pause from your day today and take a listen to this message. I hope you will find it an inspiration to be more mindful in each moment. 

Today, I want to encourage you to find some energy to take some steps toward your dreams, hold out hope even when it's hard. A tiny bit of faith can go a long way. 

This enchanted world is made for wonder. Our souls long for the sweet unknown and we will find our way into the forests, lakes, oceans, fields, to explore the spirits of ages gone by.

We are born with this as a sixth sense. Children are in touch with it, often we former children have forgotten what a sense of wonder feels like. We sometimes feel the pull of this when we are drawn to some beauty or truth that grabs our attention for a moment.

What would happen to us if we decided to explore again, this sense of wonder? How would things be different? Would we have to give up our cynicism and maybe be open to a little faith? Maybe we could be ok with not knowing and trust that life knows.

A walk through the fields, in the deep woods, along the shore, with an open heart, could change the one who walks. The magnificence of life has not left us, we have left it.

Tony

Feeling good is the closest thing to feeling god. We have been made to feel that feeling good is somehow selfish or wrong and so we deny ourselves the goodness that comes from feeling good.

You think you can't until you think you can and then you try and then you do. Our limits are often in our own minds. Our own decision to not face the edge of our comfort zones.

Take a moment or two this day, in the vast sea of moments in from of you, to find meaning and depth, you will be glad you did... 

Life has come at most of us and we have had to stand up and fight for our survival. Challenging times are no strangers to us. We have made it this far and have developed resilience and a persevering attitude.

This is a wonderful testament to you and your strength and resolve if you can say this, and most likely, those reading this today can relate to the idea of being a survivor.

However, I want to propose a new ideal for you, the strong and determined survivor. This ideal is taking the next step beyond a  survival mentality.

We did not survive to just stay in this place of being able to say that I made it against all odds. Why did we fight through so much to get to today?

I want to suggest that we can build a very powerful life on top of this foundation, that is moving from surviving to thriving!

Love Overcomes Fear

I have had some recent lessons in the art of listening to my own fears, not to give them space but to give them a hearing. Instead of being woken in the middle of the night, or experiencing fear in a stomach or headache, or tension somewhere in my body, or emotions of sadness or worry, I am giving my fears a hearing.

The stronger part of me, my soul, can offer a space of unconditional love for all parts of me. Including my fear. Listening to but not internalizing my fears, allowing the reasoning behind fear to be expressed, will help to relieve them.

Life is not easy, taking risks and trusting is always a challenge to the desire for safety and familiarity. Truly experiencing life requires us to follow our heart, our passion, to find fulfillment we must step out into the unknown and be stretched to see what we can become if we will follow our dreams. To do less is to not live fully. Yet to do so, can provoke fear which is often dormant until risk arises.

Giving your fears a hearing along the road toward fulfillment is simply loving all aspects of yourself. Your passion gets a place to be heard, so let's also give fear a place. The difference is that when fear gets in the atmosphere of love, it diminishes.

Fear is fed by judgment, our own, or someone else's. Perfect love casts out or removes fear, not by rejecting it, but by assuring it that there is no judgment, failure will occur and you will still be loved, you will fall short, and still, be loved. It is ok, to not be perfect, no one is, and judgment usually comes from us and others, when we forget that.

A reading of the Beatitudes 

Once we have been able to obtain the courage necessary to take the steps toward fulfilling our life's calling, and we begin to make decisions in our outer life that align with this inner reality, we are on our way toward the path to fulfillment.

Now we must work strategically with the process and trust the unfolding of the path ahead. It is very easy to miss this. We have worked through the courage and made the decisions.  Fear was set aside and I am proclaiming my right to create my life the way I see it.

The real work now begins, it's time to make it happen. It's time to get up every day and go to bed every night with a single focus. Trusting, following, working with, the process to get there.

This will require a thousand more faith stands, and as many, rejections of fear. It will require a single focus and a continual reminding of yourself of what you have decided and why.

You have all that it takes to get there, today, tomorrow, then the next day, trust the process.