Words to keep us on the right path

"The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."
  - Norman Vincent Peale

"Believe in yourself. Have faith in your abilities. Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy."
   - Norman Vincent Peale

We ALL have the power necessary to attain peace and happiness!

Today!!!

We constantly seek and pursue what we think is peace and happiness only to find out a little too late that we are way down the wrong path!

It has been proven that if we actively and passionately pursue opportunities to help others with their daily battles, immerse ourselves with the goal of assisting others, as opposed to letting our own challenges, temporary setbacks, and troubles weigh us down.

The answer to our challenges are already inside us and within our very own reach!

We just need to have Faith and Belief in our purpose here on this earth, whether or not we know that purpose yet, and the best way to dig out of our own issues is to turn to help others do their digging!!

It just takes one person to start!!  Find that person today and change your life!!

Stay Strong!

Photo courtesy of R. Pellechia ..all rights reserved

All you need is one to start....

"Count your blessings.

Once you realize how valuable you are and how much you have going for you, the smiles will return, the sun will break out, the music will play, and you will finally be able to move forward the life that God intended for you with grace, strength, courage, and confidence."

    - Og Mandino

One of my greatest concerns in life is that I will fail to count my blessings every day.

I struggle almost daily trying to appreciate the gifts that God has given me and to give thanks for each of them.

I know all too well that "there but for the grace of God go we" is a truth that we all oftentimes fail to realize and each morning before I get out of bed I make an effort to reflect on all the good in our lives and to give thanks for it!

The beauty of this is that all we need to do is identify one of these blessings to start!

We are so trained to pursue material goods, to compare ourselves to the rich and famous, and chase things that we feel will bring us that elusive happiness and peace and joy.

These things will not deliver what we seek!

Not at all!

If we can step back and start with the  mere fact that we can get out of bed in the morning, using that as our first blessing and building from there, we can start to put things in perspective and truly understand ALL the many blessings we take for granted!!

Today, list out ten blessings that you can celebrate and give thanks for and you may be shocked at how far off our measurements of our happiness and luck have been!!!

We only need one blessing to begin this daily exercise and believe me we all have many more than we know and appreciate!!!!

Count them up and enjoy them!!!  

They don't always last forever!!!

Stay Strong!!!

Seek them out.....you will not regret it...

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch.

Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

—e e cummings

This is the massive power that we have and control to positively influence and really assist others in our lives every single day.

We encounter countless people all day long, friends and strangers alike, who are in desperate need of some encouragement, some inspiration, some kind words or a sympathetic ear to listen to their concerns or fears.

Be on alert for these opportunities each day because by sincerely helping and uplifting our brothers and sisters will provide us with even more energy, peace and joy than the receiver gets as a result!

And by uplifting them we reveal to them their own power and spirit!!!

So let's forget our issues and worries, seek out others in distress or crying for help....and trust me you will know what to do when you find them!!!

Mother Teresa said you didn't have to help the entire world, just start with one person. And she knew a little bit about uplifting and inspiring!!!

God Bless and Stay Strong!!!

Her words always speak volumes!!

We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.
    - Mother Teresa

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
      - Mother Teresa

Happy Monday and Stay Strong!!!

Simplify. Slow down and truly LIVE this Gift of Life....as it is all too fleeting..

"As we traversed rural India at the speed of a couple of miles per hour, it became clear how much we could learn simply by bearing witness to the villagers' way of life.

Their entire mental model is different—the multiplication of wants is replaced by the basic fulfillment of human needs.

When you are no longer preoccupied with asking for more and more stuff, then you just take what is given and give what is taken.

Life is simple again.

A farmer explained it to us this way:

"You cannot make the clouds rain more, you cannot make the sun shine less. They are just nature's gifts—take it or leave it."

When the things around you are seen as GIFTS, they are no longer a means to an end; they are THE means and the end.

And thus, a cow-herder will tend to his animals with the compassion of a father,

a village woman will wait three hours for a delayed bus without a trace of anger,

a child will spend countless hours fascinated by stars in the galaxy, and finding his place in the vast cosmos.

So with today's modernized tools at your ready disposal, don't let yourself zoom obliviously from point A to point B on the highways of life; try walking the back roads of the world, where you will witness a profoundly inextricable connection with all living things.

–Nipun Mehta, PATHS ARE MADE FOR WALKING: Four steps to take on the road of life, Parabola, Fall 2012.

Choose wisely....

"Change your thoughts and you change your world."
- Norman Vincent Peale

Be very careful with the thoughts you let into your world today.

Discriminate and be picky about which thoughts you will allow to demand your attention today.

Whichever ones you choose to focus on will make or break your day!

Keep track, play gatekeeper and choose wisely!

Stay Strong!!

Your job...

"Friends are angels who lift us to our feet when our wings have trouble remembering how to fly."
  - Anonymous

We all have one only job to do today!  One main priority that we really need to focus on - we need to find someone today who is struggling and needs our help getting on their feet!!

If we keep a list by our bedside and each night we check off the calendar - marking the day as successful - if we indeed took some action to help someone else with their challenges, how many  marked days would your calendar show??

We constantly talk about what we should use to measure success in  our lives so why not use this as one of them??

There are more than enough people that we see daily that need you to uplift them...seek them out today!!

It is our most important job!!!

Stay Strong!