It's there even if you can't see it

 An interesting thing happened one morning when I was picking figs for breakfast...

This summer I spent many mornings eating breakfast at my fig tree. Divine! The interesting thing about a fig tree, is that the figs don't all ripen at once. New fruits come out each day as the older fruits are ripening. When eating straight from the tree, the trick is to find them ripe enough, but not too ripe. 

One morning I saw the perfect fig. I knew it would be a taste of Heaven. I moved in close between the branches and leaves. As I got closer, it just disappeared! How could it be? I moved out again and saw it. So I knew that when I moved in closer, something blocked my view as it seemed to disappear.  What a metaphor for our goals and dreams in life.

You may know clearly what your goals and dreams are. You may be taking action in the direction of your goals and dreams. Then, as you think you are moving closer, all signs of actualizing it seem to disappear.

Take heart! 

Just because you don't see your goal as close as you thought you were to it, does not mean your heart's desire is not there. 

Try changing your perspective, move about (in thoughts or actions or both). You'll see it, maybe closer than you thought!

Love,

Aunt Laya

Photo by me one morning at breakfast. :-) 

With gratitude to the Creator of figs, cameras, and all of life!

Tool for Life - Reframing

"If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!"

I just saw this quote and of course it made me smile. But then I realized this is the perfect example for a life tool. This tool is a skill you can develop for keeping your mindset positive. It is called "Reframing". You can use this tool for the way you relate to your own life and also how you relate to others.

You get to decide how you want to frame your life and your perceptions. Kind of like when you take a photograph. You choose what to focus on. In life, you decide what to focus on! You decide who is in the picture and who is out. You decide what you want to photograph--you decide what to put energy into, and how you want to do that.

Then once you have taken your photo--or once something has already happened in your life--you decide how you want to view it in your mind. To open up your thoughts on this one, take a minute to understand how a frame on a picture really makes a difference:

If you have never taken anything to a frame shop, now would be a good time to head on out to one just to have a look at how the process works. or check out these websites to see what I mean:
Look here to see ideas of the way things can look in different frames and how many different kinds of frames and matts you can choose from.
Look here to see more framing ideas and notice the way the environment you place your picture in is also like a frame.

So how do you apply this in your life? Let's say you set the goal of hiking up a mountain. At the end of the day, you didn't make it to the top of the mountain. Now you get to choose the way you want to frame the day.
You could say to yourself: Wow, what a great day, I saw wonderful sites, climbed higher than I ever have before, and had a nice time.

OR

You could say to yourself: What a failure, I never even got to the top of the mountain.

What attitude will serve you the best? What attitude will help you enjoy the life you are living?

Here's another way you can use reframing: A child says "I hate you" to his parent. The parent can say to himself "Oh, I'm a failure as a parent!" OR "This kid is tired and needs a nap." OR "What can I do to help my child understand this situation?" In this situation you can use reframing to give another person the benefit of the doubt. You can do that if you're the kid too. Say your parents yell at you "for no reason". It could be that they are actually having a bad day! Poor, poor parents. They are doing the best they can.

And, you're allowed to give your own self the benefit of the doubt too! You are doing the best you can. When you make a mistake (or your parents or your kids or anyone) know that you (and they) are doing the best you can.

Bottom line: You can choose the thoughts and perspective that you want. I hope you'll choose well in ways that will help you grow and find peace.

You can do this!

Love,
Aunt Laya

Thank you to Morguefile.com and Procrastinator for the great image!

Advice for a Tree

This question came in as a comment for an earlier post:

Dear Aunt Laya,
I need some advice, because I can't seem to find anyone who can tell me how to solve my problem. I can't get myself to go to class everyday! I skip and come up with all sorts of excuses, though the real reason is that I feel like a loser in class. My class consists of students with sky-high GPAs, and I am the only odd one there. Although I work harder than them in terms of written work, I cannot think like them and generate questions like how they do. In my school, we are graded on our participation and knowledge and not how much work we produce. I always get out-beaten and never feels good. My grades are failing, I only have one year before I graduate and I can't help feeling hopeless and useless all the time. I never hated school this much. I would really appreciate some advice.

Dying Tree.

********

Dear Tree,
Sometimes trees appear to be dying but they are not. It is fall and time for the leaves to die and fall off, but the tree isn't really dying, its just in a cycle of renewal. The tree stands strong and beautiful in the winter as the next phase is preparing itself. There is a beauty in this cycle of life too but you have to look for it to see it. Then in the spring new buds will form and suddenly seem to burst forth in an explosion of growth.

DO NOT DESPAIR! I learned that despair is when someone is full of self pity and then there is no room for joy to come in. Now may be a good time for you to redefine what success is to you. It's not the same for everyone, you know? If you have only one year left to graduate, keep showing up and get through this. It doesn't have to be on the same terms as everyone else. Just because the instructor is not judging you in a framework that is fair to you, you don't have to measure your success in the same way. Don't let discouragement get the better of you. Hang in there, "this too shall pass".

Have you defined your dreams? Do you know what is important to you? School is a tool and a stepping stone. Finish what you started and then use the open doors to head toward your heart's desire. That means you are true to you (not some teacher's version of what you "should" be, what your Creator intended for you to be in all your shining true self).

You really can do this!

Love and (((hugs))),
Aunt Laya

Thank you to Robb and Morguefile.com for the beautiful photo!

Help for Teens to Graduate High School

If you need a boost in getting through school...
If you can give a boost in helping someone else get through school...

http://www.boostup.org/

is a place to go online to get or give a boost up!

It's a really great idea, so go support someone or ask for support right now.

It's easy and simple: Just click here if you haven't already.

Cheers!
Aunt Laya

Overcoming Fear

Once I was working on a movie set with a famous actress/model. Just before the camera started rolling, she started to scream and stomp about. Everyone on the set thought she had lost her mind. As suddenly as she started, she stopped and looked around smiling. She explained that she learned that if some place inside she felt foolish about a scene, she should really "act" foolish so that the scene would feel normal to her.

What ever the reasons are we sometimes give in to fear of going for our dreams. I don't think it's always important to know why. It's OK to skip the why and simply get to the how.

There are different kinds of fear.

• Fear that is good because it can keep you safe.
  
• Irrational fear--fear that has no basis in reality and actually interferes with daily life.
• Fear that holds you back from living your dreams.

Sometimes it's good to be afraid. We're supposed to be afraid to run in front of a speeding train. It's wise to wait until the train is past before we cross the tracks. It's good for a woman to have some fear about walking alone in a parking lot at night. Bad things happen too often and it's wise to ask a man (or for a man to offer) to walk a woman to her car at night. It's good to be afraid of going to jail. It may be better to do what's right just because it's right, but it's also good to understand that some actions have a negative consequence and to be afraid of that is healthy.

Sometimes fear is debilitating. Fear can be so deep and wide that the person who is feeling it can not leave their home. This is not healthy fear. It is a kind of fear that can be treated though help may be needed. Some people are so afraid of flying that they will not leave their home town. That's not a big deal if it's not stopping the person from his normal life. It's sad if he has can not go to the award presentation for his good work because of his fear.

Then there is the kind of fear that doesn't look like such a big deal. I mean, you're living your life just fine, right? Yet, there are fears that stand in the way of doing, being, or accomplishing something that would make your heart sing.

This is fear that you can conquer!

The power of imagination

The truth is, fear is mostly imagined. One of my many favorite quotes is by Mark Twain:

"I am an old man and have known a great many troubles,
but most of them never happened." ~Mark Twain

Courageous people are not those without fear, they move in spite of their fear.

You know this is true. Think about something you were very fearful about that in the end worked out just fine. You already have life experience with this, but maybe you don't give yourself credit. Were you afraid the first day at a new job, but now you love it? Were you afraid the first day of a new school, but you made friends and got through it? Did you remember the first time you got on a bus or train or airplane alone?

Have you ever tried to do something and the thing failed? Maybe you felt bad for a time, but then if you think about it, don't you feel great that you gave it a try? Did you learn something? Did you turn your learning into a stepping stone?

Think about the times when you have accomplished the thing you felt fearful about. Remember and hold onto the feeling of accomplishment when you succeeded. Imagine that same great feeling right now and in the future.

You can do this.
Email me your wins, I love hearing from you.

Love,
Aunt Laya

with gratitude to FlyingPete and morguefile.com for the amazing photo!

Mistakes!

"A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable
but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." ~ George Bernard Shaw

Don't be afraid of making mistakes. It's one of the ways we learn. Learn from your mistakes and then move forward.

Dream your dreams, do the thing that gives your life meaning. If you're doing something that doesn't make your heart sing--in the big picture, nothing is always perfectly wonderful, there are challenges in even the best of choices--you can always change direction, change your mind, regroup, and move ahead in the direction you want to be moving!

One of the beautiful gifts that life experience brings is that each mistake you make shapes you. You have more experience and you get to make more choices from a position of deeper understanding.

Be true to you. (and be honest with yourself!)

Remember:

"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." ~ Albert Einstein

Keep shining!
Love,
Aunt Laya

photo (c) 2008, Laya Saul
This photo may be used with permission with a credit and link to this blog :-)

A message for you from God

"I know you are human. Humans are not perfect. I made you that way. And I love you anyway. In fact, that's why I love you - because you are not perfect. I already had perfection before I created you. What I want from creation is an imperfect world that strives to improve, filled with human beings that fail, get up, and move ahead. By being imperfect but persevering nevertheless, you have fulfilled the purpose of your creation. You have achieved the one thing that I can't do without you - you have brought the perfect God into an imperfect world.

Thanks.

With love,
God"

I'm not sure who the first person was to receive this message to pass along to the rest of us, but thank you!
Thank you to user DSee at Morguefile.com for the amazing photo

How full is your glass?

There are two things that I seem to always come back to when I talk about change or growth or creating the life you want to live:

Action

Perspective

You may not be able to change a given situation in life but you can change your perspective about it. You can change the way you see a situation (or relationship). You can change the way you relate to a situation (or person). You can complain about what you don't have, or be grateful for what you do have. You know this one: You can see the glass as half empty, you can see the glass as half full, or you can see the glass as overflowing. Just make sure your glass is turned up so the blessings can get in there! How you think about things will change you; and when you change you, you change everyone around you just a teeny, tiny bit. To tell you the truth, I don't even know why this works, but it does. Experiment with this. You can go from self conscious to confident and change your fortune.

Or, you may be able to do something, some teeny, tiny little bit. You may be able to take some action, no matter how small it may seem, and change the course of history. Do not underestimate the power of your words and actions. Make one more phone call, send one more email, take one more class, do one more act of kindness, reach out one more time.

SECRET REVEALED:

Are you ready for this? If your intention (I repeat intention) when you are shifting your perspective or taking action, is to uplift and nurture yourself and others, you'll add an even greater degree of power to it.

"Intention is when the mind, with great earnestness,

and of choice, fixes its view on any idea."

--Locke

The teeny, tiny, itty, bitty little bit of change you create today, whether it's in the way you see things or the way you do things, will, over time, make a big difference in your life.

EXPERIMENT OF THE WEEK: Notice each time you have an opportunity to thank someone, then do it. (Even if you paid for a service, say "thank you.") Notice anything different?

Love,

Aunt Laya

Failure!

"Success is not measured by your victories,

but by how you recover from your failures!"
--Vic Preisser

Fail well!

Dare to be average!

Take one more breath.
Take one more step in the direction of your dreams.

Your success is not measured by ceremonies or awards. It is not measured at all. Success is overcoming life's challenges, not all at once, but an inch at a time. Sometimes those inches add up and you seem to have a great breakthrough. You couldn't have had the breakthrough (and neither could any one else) without the inches in between. Success is also treasuring life's gifts. Often--like the lump of coal that, over time and with great pressure, becomes a diamond--we don't recognize the treasures so fast. Remember: "You see what you look for." So look for the gift in every challenge. Look for the sparkle in the eyes of another, and look for the sparkle in the eyes that look at you in the mirror.

You are amazing--*you light up this world*--without a doubt!

Love,
Aunt Laya

What are you planting this spring?

I've been trying to plant flowers in my yard. Here's a little of what I'm learning:

• Sometimes a plant takes, sometimes it doesn't, keep planting anyway. {Sometimes you fall on your face. That's OK, everyone does, get up again!}

• Make sure you know the right season for planting what you want. If you miss a season, it will come around again. {Everything has its season including relationships, personal growth, work, and learning.}
  
• Make sure you give the plant the right amount of shade and sun--where you plant something matters. {Put yourself in the right environment! Be around good and healthy people, read and watch and listen to things that will nourish you.}
  
• Sometimes the dog will dig up what you plant. That's OK, be patient, the dog will out grow it or you can plant somewhere else. {Things don't always work out the way we plan them. That's OK, try again, wait until you mature, or try a different way.}
  

Quote for the day: "I will waste not even a precious second today in anger or hate or jealousy or selfishness. I know that the seeds I sow I will harvest, because every action, good or bad, is always followed by an equal reaction. I will plant only good seeds this day."
--Og Mandino1923-1996, Author and Speaker

What are seeds of good? Kindness, gratitude, charity, joy, rest...