Thank You

Hi Fabulous Peeps :)

I don't always listen to music~off and on a meditate around in silence. Or think up~thinking more positively to bring in more the life I truly want and am believing I deserve to live :)

I was listening to a few songs I adore a few minutes ago. I had to listen to one of them twice. And I after listening to this (next alphabetical thing on my iTunes!) theta healing I will go back and listen to:

Thank You by Dido

I wholeheartedly adore this song from the bottom of my toes!!!!

Do you have any songs like that?

For me this song reminds me of when my heart was bereft after kicking someone out of my heart in the year 2000...and it makes me think of when I went to Negril, Jamaica with my fabulous friend Sandy in 2001. This song makes me remember being there for a week that year and just loving myself. Jumping off that cliff. Sitting on that bench up in the cliffs watching the sunset every night. Banana pancakes that I still make. Ahhhh. What a heart~soothe....

I am so thankful for this song for reminding me that healing our heart is entirely possible. That there is life on the other side of where we are and getting eventually to where we want to be.

Thank you~ have a wonderful week!

Missed A Year

I feel like I missed a year in my daughters life.

This year she is in fourth grade. She got her favorite teacher. Her fabulous teacher is jam-packed with love and energy and she's all about teaching in a fun way! We are grateful for a much smoother year! We still have the usual grumblings about the same particular kids who do funny things in her class~a boy who lives two houses down from my mom's house who's got it all and is growing into himself nicely, along with her friend who "stole" her looming idea. Ah, such is life! I like to give my daughter an outlet to release that which she doesn't like. I also make sure we also talk about what we want to dreamily bring in.

I am so grateful to be having such a spectacular year of schooling and life for my daughter! What a difference a year and a teacher make. I remember teachers who weren't the best from when I was growing up. Yes, it's good to have perspective. It's good to be who I am now so as to not put up with bad behaviors or wonky things.

I really feel we missed a year by having a teacher not all in. She taught my daughter and a whole school year passed and was passed by...but... It's truly interesting to reflect on teaching styles or even personalities. Makes me wonder why some people are so afraid of life? I am not! Such a far cry from my mom. I appreciate my mom's good intentions, along with the great things she does for us and the fabulous fun moments we share. And I must always remind myself when she criticizes or puts my ideas down if I even am brave enough to share them with her in passing, she is who she chooses to be~some of us are not fully living our lives or love ourselves. And perhaps that's the gift: I am wanting to work on loving myself more fully in an effort to take better care of my body. To this end, it allows me to notice the contrast more! And appreciate the great things!

Applauding the Dream~Livers

Hola Fabulous Peeps!

Every week is pretty amazing, isn't it? It wasn't all week that death was swirling around me, but I felt it. We had some great patients pass away too recently. And we had other patients that are forging forward with fabulous things!

I think it's super succulent when anyone marches forward fiercely toward their dreams! I think it's especially super wonderful when patients who might be somewhat near the end of their lives, say, buy an RV and plan to drive off into the warm sunset!

It's funny, I may work in a cancer clinic. However, for me it's a great way to earn my keep these days. AND expand myself in the midst of chaos and change in the workplace, challenging economic times the kinda devalue us as employees instead of how we could be boosted up, and more super lessons. I totally appreciate my job and I mostly love it every day. It's incredibly rewarding for different reasons.

I see patients of all kinds. We are taught to show kindness and professionalism. This is easy to do, for I am this way naturally when I am in my work environment. (And I've had soooo many different fun environments!) Most that succumb are left with only a little life to live. Bless them all, and I am grateful they touched my lives.

Even when my doctors advocate one thing, I inwardly love it when patients rebel and decide to forgo continuing with treatment to drive their RV somewhere warm for the winter. I sooooo applaud this. They deserve to live much more than they are meekly able to. I'm jumping for joy on the inside when people tell me about their fabulous plans spending 10 days in gorgeous, friendly Belize. I spent 2 weeks there in 1999, 8 days of that on a 43 foot catamaran with fabulous people! It's still a dream trip in my heart!

I want to honor one of my friends on that incredible trip to Belize. His motto was "no regrets". It fits in with living your dreams until the end! He may have met his end already, so what an incredible life he was able to live! Jungle hats off to you fabulous Bob, wherever you are!

So many of us aren't stricken with a disease that gives us a timeline. I'm super grateful to be alive these days where we can run furiously toward one or fifty dreams OR we can keep marching toward them with our drumbeat continuously beating toward our dreams! We are so blessed with people to connect with who share our dreams, and endless sources of fabulousness and inspiration!

I'm grateful for two direct sources of this for me, Hemal Radia and Leonie Dawson. Super grateful hugs to both of you! Leonie makes me realize how fabulous it is to be alive today where we can create fun words! Hemal is someone I have been working with longer to live better and live more of my dreams.

I am also grateful for you~! Thanks for reading! Keep up the great work of enjoying life!
~Marina~

It's A Great Place To Be

Quick! Name 3 things you are grateful for in the comments below. It is sooooo good to be mindful about what we appreciate and savor in all parts of our lives.

I don't have a long commute or drive to my work, but for some time now I hardly turn the radio on. I choose to think positively and be grateful and aware of what I am seeing. Just today near the end of my walk with Biggie my pug, I saw a row of maple trees sprinkled with a few others that were just gorgeous with the redness of fall.

Truly, I am finding more and more to be grateful for every day!

The longer I live in my townhouse, I am grateful for the home I live in. I wasn't always. My daughter and I lived with my parents up until May, 2012. We lived in their walkout basement. It was about 1,000 square feet with a full kitchen, one bedroom, and a fabulous bathroom with a big Jacuzzi bath. I miss the bath!

I didn't know how I would be able to move out and if I would be able to pay for everything. And I hadn't been working steadily at that point. I was working two different office jobs through my temporary agency instead of getting a "real" job.

Everything worked out perfectly. Right before I moved out, I started at the job I'm still at. Yes, it's still through my temporary agency, yet I am still there savoring the learning and the fabulous coworkers and the gifts the patients bring.

It's funny, when I came to look at this place we now call home, I wasn't sure. Not sure at all. Yet I put myself in the place of being grateful it is better than what I just came from, along with splashing my walls in ocean, juicy passionfruit, and green grape colors.

Yes, so many parts of me still long to be living at the ocean and in warmth. Especially now that winter's nearly upon us! Yet... I am finding myself focusing on what I love about living here. Daily small things tug on my heart and gratitude muscles. I suppose it is only in being thankful for it all and most importantly the small things that we allow ourselves to keep moving toward who we want to be, who we are meant to be. Most of all, I am grateful for the me I am along with the me I am becoming!

Grateful For The Laughter!

What do you do during your days? As you might know, for my day job I work at a cancer clinic as a scheduler. And can you believe it~I am still here as a "temporary office employee". I only say can you believe it because I have been here since April of 2012. There has been much turmoil whilst here, but I choose to keep calm and have faith I will keep working. I like that this is one area I can keep calm and have faith, despite others worrying about it for me.

These days, life flows by at our clinic. We miss our fabulous patients that are no longer here, and treasure the ones still here. I also run into fun people from my past, such as my junior high and high school art teacher. Sigh. Seeing her brought warm feelings in my heart for quite a while~she was a person who taught what she loved and so to speak loved you unconditionally. Errr, you can't tell I grew up in a religious home, can you? :)

I think my favorite part about work these days is sharing fun moments that turn into memories with my coworkers. There are a fabulous handful of them. Everyone is of the good sort, but a few make the days go by swiftly and with smiles on my heart. I'm grateful for all of them!

There are lots of projects and parts to our scheduling jobs. I gave up caffeine before September started, so in the morning I am merely trying to find my way into the day. I keep my head to the ground and do my work, focusing on a special project I had been tasked with. Even though we are always busy with phone calls from all our patients, along with scheduling and making the charts for the next few days, we take time now and then to laugh and share stories about each others lives. It's such a treat to have these fun moments. It truly brights your life when you have laughter surrounding you on all sides!

Enjoy the laughter and fun moments in your life!

Calendars

Wow ~ has life been clipping along at a fabulously nice pace! I just walked by my only calendar that's hanging up. It was made by my daughter for a mother's day present at school. Since it's a "work of art" I don't feel it's a real calendar ~ the kind you keep track of your life on.

That got me to thinking: I do not have any real calendars for this year to keep track of my life on. Not even one calendar to write important dates on or goals I am striving toward. Yes, we did just move into a new place. In May. And I am still unpacking. Chuckle, chuckle! I took a summer intensive class that has been over for a few weeks so I've started gingerly unpacking again.

Looking at a calendar and thinking or pondering about goals and what I want to truly be doing as opposed to what I'm allowing to take up my moments is a great time to pause. Another great time to pause, since I am one who loves to reflect deeply or to think about how everything is interconnected. For me, I can see since I did not consciously take time to buy a calendar I can keep track of my monthly goals and what I am choosing to live, life is going to continue zinging by faster and faster.

I've chosen to jump in more this year by getting a full time job that is pushing and stretching me while allowing me to become even more. Laughing to myself, I can honestly admit I have way too many "things" or areas of importance in life to 'be balanced about'. I have deep, passionate goals for myself. I am choosing to continue getting healthier and healthier mentally, spiritually and physically. I love that I keep choosing to live again. I love that I continue again toward the path of being who I am, and allowing it as fully as I can.

Yes, calendars are important. Yet, at the same time, it's more important what we choose to fill our moments with. Do we keep letting life pass us by or set intentions and then allow them to be fulfilled? In my deeply fulfilling work right now, I am receiving the gift of life. The gift of time and the opportunity to make a difference by bringing forth all these flowering seeds keeping time in my heart. Each and every day I count my blessings to still be alive, to still be allowed to make a difference. I am given the gift of being able to even keep a calendar and plan into the future. What beauty each day can hold ~ each day I can start fresh toward being grateful for it all and to work toward bringing my art and my creations into the world.

What comes up within you as you look at your calendar?

So Happy These Days

I am just amazed at the pace life is clipping along at these days for me. I feel immensely blessed for all these blessings.

I am having so much fun at my job each day. Amazingly learning new skills ~ now I know how to schedule cat scans and bone density tests and such. The biggest part of me adores learning new things! I love to stretch my brain. I feel grateful as I've gotten older I've become more comfortable in my skin and confident as well. I still work on shedding stuff like giving a rip what others think of me or judging myself against others. One way I could look at it: if ms. x had lived through what I lived through, how would they have handled it.

I truly am so grateful for all these lessons along this path I'm on.

Summer is just my absolutely favorite time. This isn't even about the warm weather or the beach. And it's something I am experiencing living in Minnesota ~ I adore the way the air smells after things have started growing again, just after spring when mother nature is sliding into the beginning of summer. Ahhhh. So content. That beautiful, fresh, sweet smell mixed with sunshine reminds me how good life can be. It also symbolizes the stagnant part of the year is over and now we can embrace growth and loving ourselves. Not necessarily to bring in more, although that is fun, too. Whatever we with and without intent focused on and prayed into existence is coming in.

That is the beauty in life right now. I love loving life again. I love being grateful for so many things every day. I love the hustle of getting back into the swing of living fully again. This means living in our own place again, a new job that is most days over alarmingly fast with many smiled and lots of laughter shared with patients and coworkers, just making life work again. I love that I am actually ready and already embracing it all again. Getting up, getting myself and my daughter ready, dropping her at her grandma's for free daycare, sliding into work sometimes early and sometimes just barely in time, weaving through the tapestry of the busyness of the day, a new extremely fun class that counts toward my pre-nursing classes, even going out.

It's so amazing to be on the other side. To trust it is and will keep getting better. Best of all, to be grateful for all the moments. Ahhhh, life.

42 Things In 42 Years!

There are soooo many super-awesome people who write awesome things that I follow :) They're about travelling, building your own business and being able to live on the beach in the Pacific, releasing, the funniness of life. Some of these are young whippersnappers! I love that, too. I get inspired by their 27 in 27 years posts...so I'm challenging myself here to make my own but to keep it short :) So I actually finish! Ha! :)

42 Things I Have Learned In 42 Years To Make Life More Succulent,
To Move Through The Suckiness Faster,
To Get To The Part Where You Drink In The Good Things Again

1. Breathe it in when it's good. Treasure those good moments, good days, good months, good years!
2. Trust that life will get good again. It will.
3. In quiet moments list in your head what you are grateful for. I do this when I'm falling asleep.
4. Be outrageous! Live wildly when you can!!
5. When someone asks you why as in "Why did you travel to 20 countries?" sassily retort: "Why not!" :)
6. When you are stuck, move 27 things. I think the fabulous Denise Linn says if you move 27 things around it shifts the energy.
7. Declutter! Why? Why not!
8. Read inspirational, positive people/websites/books/blogs.
9. Start by loving yourself. Keep loving yourself.
10. Expect nothing. (Not from yourself of course!) This is a good trick or technique to get through days you're not especially fond of, like holidays or birthdays. This way you're overjoyed at the nice things that happen.
11. Be grateful for even the smallest things. Even when life is going great for you. Especially when life is not going so great!
12. If you are feeling crabby or unloved, do ONE (small or big) thing for yourself to nurture yourself and your spirit.
13. Are you an artist? Even if you aren't, create art as often as you can. Who cares if you think you can't whatever. Just do it.
14. Look at your art. Treasure it in your heart.
15. Look at other art.
16. Be open to allowing new things in. Listen to get a sign for the next book to read. Take a moment to talk and laugh with the person waiting in line with you to check out. Lovely moments are always happening!
17. Cultivate a life you love.
18. Have courage to release the negative and the toxic. Yes, even if it's your family. At the end of the day, you are obligated to nothing (no-thing) :)
19. Allow yourself to flourish. I have loved sinking into more of who I am as I've gotten older.
20. Jump into it! Take that daring leap and go live in that foreign country.
21. It is true that your only regrets are what you haven't done - it can stay in your mind.
22. Forgive yourself easily. For everything. For your interactions with others that didn't go so well. For not leaving sooner. For not jumping in soon enough.
23. Allow.
24. Make treasure maps. Some call them vision boards. I have collected pictures and phrases over the years and kept them. Now I get notebooks that were lying around and tape everything in.
25. Surround yourself with images and phrases of what you want to bring in.
26. Say yes when it comes in! Even if you're scared! Even if you forgot how it is to live succulently!
27. Get some great shoes!
28. Walk great places in your great shoes.
29. Listen to what people around you are telling you with their words, their stories and their actions.
30. Forgive yourself for anything you see as a mistake. My thing has been forgiving my parents for not teaching me more, and my mom for not loving me unconditionally.
31. Access your beautiful interior. Do this by reading beautiful words and travelling to countries where you do not know the language so you must spend time by yourself.
32. Believe the Universe/Spirit/God/Goddess has FABULOUS things in store for you!
33. Yes, you are worth it!
34. Surround yourself with crazy, succulent, fun friends!
35. Trust that whatever journey you are on, you are meant to be on. Yes, I'm a single mom. Yes, I was with someone not so great. I feel sooo blessed to have my daughter, especially now that I'm not sure if I'll have any more beautiful children naturally :)
36. Walk away from negative nellies faster. I haven't yet mastered the art of tuning them out while having experiences with them. I bless them and then bless myself for knowing I'm greater than their fears. :)
37. If you have a dream, take one step towards it. Take another. And another. Pretty soon you biked 88 miles in one day :) Or wrote that first book (I've got 16,000 words already in mine!)
38. Expect miracles. And then be grateful for what you allow in :)
39. Treasure things/experiences/most of all people and release when its time.
40. Be grateful your life is better now than it used to be.
41. Trust your life will get fabulous again. I tend to have an "18 months of suckiness period". I know, it sounds funny. I'm grateful to have passed through another one!
42. Learn. Learn about yourself. Set big dreams. Go for whatever is in your big, beautiful heart. Always believe in yourself!

Am I Supposed To Let Go More?

My daughter just turned eight on October 29. Yep, she's a pumpkin. I'm always feeling blessed to have her. (Especially as the years keep going by and I haven't yet met someone new to marry and have a family with ~ so I'm workng oncreating a succulent life again!)

It used to be that I would get so emotional her birthday month. It was very traumatic for me when I had my daughter. In being reminded of her coming into this world, my world, I would remember back to the sadness of that time. That her dad chose his drugs over wonderful us.

I'm so happy it's eight years later! Eight years to heal, to make more mistakes to heal from. To start realizing I've got to live my own dreams. Many, many lessons to be blessed with.

I might not be fully healed. I've gone through other minor traumas of my spirit, my being. And that's okay. I no longer feel I have to be so conscious about pulling myself up with positiveness and actions. It's happening by itself now. Thank goodness, another blessing.

I am immensely grateful for my LOA coaching group. In our weekly calls, interactions, implementing, and processing what I'm being reminded my spirit knows, I am choosing to release a lot. To move quickly through turbulent emotional moments. I'd like to relase those, too! ;) Hemal Radia teaches us when something hurts to do things that make you feel better to allow a higher vibration.

So, alas, my daughter again received a crappy birthday present from her absentee dad. Late, too. Seeing the crap he gave her without even a card, I am reminded why I left him. I am reminded, slapped in the face to let go again. What an onion of letting go of the king of toxicity! When will I learn to release any expectataions, any hopes of him being what I want? I need to realize he's no longer in our lives for many reasons.

Part of my expectations are mine alone. They stem from childhood and adult disappointment from my own parents and family for birthdays and holiday gifts. For speaking my truth and not being acknowledged on my special days. As I keep getting older, amidst the seemingly millions of things I am working on internally, I truly am learning to let go of my expectations of others.

What I'll be pondering is how much do I fully let go and how much do I speak my truth? Do I visibly release him even more from our lives? At times like this I am strengthened by my good choices I've made for me in no longer allowing him in our lives. Or allowing him to have a strong emotional pull. He must have a bit of a pull if I am reacting so strongly, even if it only strong disappointment. What the hater or the comedienne in me would absolutely love to do is tape the package back up "return to sender". The note I would put inside would allude to me asking him to give her a gift card and to take these low quality/too small things back so he can buy a rock. I won't. Maybe in the morning, I will write it out and burn it with my other daily morning wishes to bring in.

I am strengthened by myself. By the good, strong choices I have made regarding her father. More and more of me these days is stepping into a better life and allowing that which I no longer need to fall by the wayside. And I must smilingly say I did pretty good this year on my own for her birthday presents. More than that, I am doing great building a beautiful life with the resources I do have for my daughter. Yes, my daughter. Happy birthday, shining light!