I stumbled upon this while searching the Internet. The author is LindaL.
As women we are a tapestry - thousands of threads woven together creating who we are in this moment. So many threads and fibres of different colors, textures, and lengths. They cover all apsects of our lives - the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, social beliefs. And yet we are a work in progress - never fully complete as long as we are breathing and making choices.
Our roles are also part of the tapestry - mother, sister, friend, mentor, co worker, lover, neighbor. It is important to create and nurture the relationships with our “sisters” who support, love, play, share, and work with us. I also believe the women in our lives have played a strong part in creating our tapestry.
I love it… what do you think?
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Today I spent some time reflecting on the amazing year I’ve had and started thinking about all the things I’ll be doing next year. Whilst reflecting I received a wonderful email from a Soul Sister (another Soul Coach).
Sophia of Soul Wings told us (the Soul Coaching group) about a practice she started doing many years ago… it is an activity where she writes down 100 wishes for the coming year. She does say that it must be completed by midnight on New Year’s Eve (if at all possible).
Here is what she suggests we do…
- In a notebook, write down all the numbers from 1 to 100 in a column on the left-hand margin.
- Start writing from 1, everything that you would like to manifest in your year ahead. Once you’ve run out of things to wish for, just for yourself, widen your circle to include prayers and wishes to your family, your community, your country, the environment, and eventually the entire planet.
Sophia explains that it’s truly an amazing activity in getting to know the REAL you – a compassionate, caring soul, who has so much to offer to the world! (What we wish for ourselves is what we wish for others, and what we wish for others is really what we wish for ourselves.)
Her advice is to get started as soon as possible. It usually takes me a couple of sessions over a day or two to finish the entire list.
It’s fun to find these lists at the end of each year and see how much you have manifested!
Thus it becomes a wonderful exercise in gratitude as well.
Happy Wishing!
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I recieved this the other day and thought I would share it with you… it is so appropriate as we approach another new year. Enjoy your New Year celebrations.
Blessings to you all during this festive season. Nicole x
******
The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn’t already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.
I turned round to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.
She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose. I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?”
I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.
“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked.
She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids…”
“No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.
After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.
We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine” as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.
Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went.
She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.
At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet.
I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.
Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.”
As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.
There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.
We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it!
There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.
If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.
Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets.
The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.”
She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Rose.”
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives.
At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.
One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.
Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.
These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.
REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL.
We make a Living by what we get, We make a Life by what we give.
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Time passes
Life happens.
Distance separates.
Children grow up.
Jobs come and go.
Love waxes and wanes.
Men don’t do what they’re supposed to do .
Hearts break.
Parents die.
Colleagues forget favors.
Careers end.
BUT………
Sisters are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girl friend is never farther away than needing her can reach.
When you have to walk that lonesome valley and you have to walk it by yourself, the women in your life will be on the valley’s rim, cheering you on, praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley’s end.
Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you…Or come in and carry you out.
Girlfriends, daughters, granddaughters, daughters-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, Mothers, Grandmothers, aunties, nieces, cousins, and extended family, all bless our life!
The world wouldn’t be the same without women, and neither would I. When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other.
Every day, we need each other still.
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While reading a blog post over at Blissings, I discovered that Meryl Dragonwolf posted this:-
Follow your bliss.
If you do follow your bliss,
you put yourself on a kind of track
that has been there all the while waiting for you,
and the life you ought to be living
is the one you are living.
When you can see that,
you begin to meet people
who are in the field of your bliss,
and they open the doors to you.
I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid,
and doors will open
where you didn’t know they were going to be.
If you follow your bliss,
doors will open for you that wouldn’t have opened for anyone else.
~ By Joseph Campbell
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I’m going to continue on with my theme of giving back, especially since we are moving into the festive season of gift giving.
There are many children who will go without this Christmas and there are many charities looking for support. You can help to make a little boy or girl’s Christmas, or even a mum or a dad’s Christmas.
Here are some suggestions:-
Christmas Cards - buy them from a charity where the money goes back into the cause or buys gifts for the less fortunate.
Christmas Food - next time you are grocery shopping, buy and extra 2 or 3 items that you could put in a Christmas bin. Generally the Christmas bins are sorted and the food is divided up and given to families on Christmas day.
Toy Drives - find out if there are any Toy Drives in your area. This is where you donate a toy which will then be given to a charity who will pass it to a child.
Christmas Tree Wishes - K-Mart and similar department stores generally put a tree up at Christmas with gift tags hanging from it. You then go off and buy a gift relevant to the gift tag and place it under the tree. At Christmas, the type of person you bought for will be given the gift.
Extending it beyond your Neighbourhood - while reading My New Shiny Shoes for some gift ideas of my own, I came across a post Michelle wrote about The Giving Gift. She talks about buying a gift for someone who has everything, and in turn you are actually giving to someone who has very little. I like her suggestions of buying a pig or lamb for a family.
Be Festive - and organise a Santa Clause pub crawl. Coordinate with each pub that you visit, they will donate some of the earnings that night to a particular charity. Then tell all your friends that they have to dress up as Santa Clause, and go on a pub crawl. The more people drink, and it can be soft drink, the more will be donated to charity.
Can you think of anything else you can do to support the less fortunate this season?
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This wonderful poem was written by Sam Levenson and commonly quoted by Audrey Hepburn when asked to share her ‘beauty tips.’
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone.
Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of each of your arms.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands; one for helping yourself, and the other for helping others.
Wise words spoken by a beautiful and wise woman.
However, if you’re looking for beauty tips that focus on skin, healthy, wellbeing etc, then I suggest you pop over to Michelle’s blog, Tonic Gifts. Michelle holds a Bits of Beauty Carnival every couple of weeks. This carnival she tells you how to create your own Milk Bath and provides a link to other DIY pampering and beauty recipes.
Enjoy!
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I received this from The Universe…
You see, Nicole, there is a choice for all who aspire to live in abundance, that only the wisest ever perceive.
You can visualize a life in which you possess fabulous wealth.
Or…
You can visualize a life in which you are creatively fulfilled, with fantastic work, dancing in the marketplace… and you possess fabulous wealth.
Do you see the oh-so-subtle difference?
I see you as the dancing sort,
The Universe
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I had a realisation today that I need more “still” time and some people who are currently in my life have come into my life to help me with this. The penny dropped when I read about Zen Teacup.
In Zen Buddhism, there is a famous story about a businessman and a Zen master. The businessman desires to become enlightened, so he visits the Zen master. The Zen master offers the businessman tea. He pours the tea into the cup and then keeps pouring until the tea is splashing on the floor.
The businessman becomes distraught and yells, “What are you doing?!”
The Zen master calmly replies, “This cup is like your mind: It is too full. It must be emptied first before you can attain enlightenment.”
What I realised is that my life is full with things… I’m always doing something as my husband says. I use to be so good at taking some “still” time but since starting my own business, I’ve eventually become busier doing “stuff” and “things”.
When I use the term “still” time I’m meaning sitting still and just breathing, not reading or watching tv or chatting on the phone. Just taking the time to stop, be still and let my mind empty. Yes… letting your mind empty is difficult but when I do it I hear my intuition a lot more clearly and I find the answers within because they just come.
I hope you get some “still” time throughout this week.
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Have you heard of the term “warm and fuzzy”? It is the way you describe how you feel when you’ve heard a story that touches your heart, or when someone has done something extra nice, just because.
I arrived home from time in Australia and felt “warm and fuzzy” when my husband greeted me at the airport with a single rose. I had the same feeling when one of my cats, smooched all over me as soon as I sat on the lounge (the other, ignored me for a day because her nose was out of joint). I also had the same feeling when I received this email about a cab driver and his older passenger.
It’s not the first time I’ve read this story and I’m sure it won’t be the last time. However, I thought I would share it with you because not only will it give you the feeling of being “warm and fuzzy”, it will also provide you with a friendly reminder that great moments often catch us unaware - beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one. People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, BUT they will always remember how you made them feel.
******
A Cab Ride
Twenty years ago, I drove a cab for a living. One night I took a fare at 2:30 am, when I arrived to collect, the building was dark except for a single light in a ground floor window. Under these circumstances, many drivers would just honk once or twice, wait a minute, and then drive away.
But I had seen too many impoverished people who depended on taxis as their only means of transportation. Unless a situation smelled of danger, I always went to the door. This passenger might be someone who needs my assistance, I reasoned to myself.
So I walked to the door and knocked. “Just a minute”, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.
After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 80’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie.
By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.
“Would you carry my bag out to the car?” she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman.
She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.
She kept thanking me for my kindness. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated.”
“Oh, you’re such a good boy,” she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, “Could you drive through downtown?”
“It’s not the shortest way,” I answered quickly.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” she said “I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice.”
I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. “I don’t have any family left,” she continued. “The doctor says I don’t have very long.” I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.
“What route would you like me to take?” I asked.
For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighbourhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.
Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.
As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, “I’m tired. Let’s go now.”
We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico.
Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.
I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.
“How much do I owe you?” she asked, reaching into her purse.
“Nothing,” I said
“You have to make a living,” she answered. “There are other passengers,” I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.
“You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,” she said. “Thank you.”
I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life
I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift?
What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?
On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.