Read an Excerpt
Musings of a Blogger
Inspirational Thoughts for Your Life's Journey
By Ruth Anne Caukwell Balboa Press
Copyright © 2016 Ruth Anne Caukwell
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5043-0049-0
CHAPTER 1
Do you have a dream?
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!
Live the life you have imagined.
— Goethe
Do you have a dream? Have you written it down, drawn around it in bright colours, and written a date beside it? Is it a concrete dream or just an airy-fairy thought or group of thoughts?
Is life too busy, stressful, or hard for you so it's easier to shove your dream away in the depths of you mind?
Are there too many of life's obstacles in the way? Perhaps you feel that you are old, have too many children, not enough money, or not enough encouragement. The list goes on and on!
Most people never get what they really truly want out of life because they do not know for sure what it is. They make excuses, let things crowd in, or lose their dreams within the storms of life.
Stop.
Take a minute to have hope.
Be optimistic and just hang in there.
Take everything in your life one step at a time.
Never be willing to settle for whatever has come or comes your way and ask yourself, by spending time with yourself, what makes your soul sing. What is it that you truly want? Ask yourself these questions:
• What make me feel the most alive?
• What were my dreams when I was a child?
• What would I do if I had the confidence to follow my dreams?
Make a list of questions that suit you and then answer them. As you unearth, discover, and write down your dreams, the ones that make you feel excited and motivated, you will become responsive to bringing about change in your life so that you can begin. Do you want to make a start in achieving what you want? Do you want to start a journey to your dreams?
A smooth sea never made a skilled mariner.
— English proverb
On every journey within your life, obstacles will arise, but be determined to make the very best choices that you can. Grow from any difficulties and slay those demons. Whether these demons are real (such as lack of finances), imagined (such as feeling that you are not worthy of success), or seemingly out of your control (such as difficulties breaking into the career of your choice), have faith, as there will be a way to break them down and continue with your dream. Go forth into the days ahead with a steadfast belief and hope that things will work out okay.
• Count your blessings.
• Climb those ladders.
• Be strong and be patient.
• Use wisdom to make those right choices.
• Seek and surround yourself with the right people for you and your dreams.
• Do some soul-searching.
• Acknowledge what might be holding you back and look at those excuses.
• Realize that you have an incredible amount of power. It's all in your own hands when it comes to directing your life!
Yes, circumstances and life crowd in. Fear can rule your mind, procrastination can shape your day, and challenges can arise that will suck you dry, but take a deep breath and break through your fears!
Continue on your journey of life and move towards those dreams. Do not wait for that knight in shining armour to slay the dragon of indecision and fear. Instead, do it yourself! Believe in your dreams, believe in your happy ending, for it is in your hands. You are the author of your own story. Go forth and follow your dreams!
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
— Chinese proverb
Success is a journey, not a destination.
— Anonymous
CHAPTER 2
The stoppers in our lives
It is not who you are, what you have, or where you live that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what and how you think, act, and feel about yourself. These are the stoppers, the plugs, that limit you and your freedom to be happy. Let go of them now.
Today I had an appointment, and afterwards, to replenish my soul, I went to sit by the seaside to reflect and think things through. Oh, how beautiful it was! After some days of stormy weather, the sea was rough and wild. The waves were crashing and the wind howling a real breeze. What was so amazingly wonderful was that due to the storms, huge piles of seaweed had been washed up on the shore, some still coming in and going out with the movement of the tide.
A number of the piles of seaweed had huge stumps on the bottom and tree-like trunks, some with one, two, and even three emerging from them. They looked like giant plugs at the base, and emerging from the tree-like "trunks" were a myriad of tangled, wild, and rambling "branches." Some were thick, some were thin, and others were so fine that they looked like filigrees of handmade lace.
Walking amongst this amazing spectacle whilst watching the waves crash onto the shore, with the seagulls picking and scrambling amongst these washed-up giants, I wondered where they had come from and thought how majestic they must have looked in life with their forms floating upwards under the ocean and swaying in the currents! What fish, what creatures, must have passed them by? How old were they? What had they seen? If they could speak, what could they have said? If they could hear what would they have heard? But sadly, I would get nothing out of them because they lay on the beach with their majesty and glory dulled and dying now that they were out on dry land, but they still had magnificent beauty! I saw that beauty still. I saw that beauty in what they represented to me.
To me, they represented the plugs, the stoppers, that we have within our lives — the bases upon where we often plant our feet and from there let our whole existence emerge and grow, but not in a healthy way. Instead, these plugs, these stoppers, bung up, stunt, and stop who we really are. They limit our growth as people, pushing us to become what we are not and systematically helping to bury our authentic selves in the process. These plugs might include the following:
• sadness
• anger
• resentment
• hatred
• apathy and procrastination
• regret
• jealousy
• perfectionism
The list goes on and may even include people. However, these huge plugs, with their tree-like "trunks" and numerous branches, had been pulled up off the sea floor where they had been born, lived their lives, been fed, and grown, seemingly there forever. Now they were just lying there devoid of life, as they had become lost in the wild and stormy sea, just as we can be.
Sometimes we get lost when we take a wrong turning. We allow the plugs to bung up all those good things open to us, and we let them stop our lives from blossoming.
So, my reader, take a moment out of your busy life and look for those stoppers that keep you from growing into the most wonderful human being that you were meant to be. Once you find them, pull them up out of your life, where they were born, fed, grown, and now live. You have the strength and courage to take that step and pull the plug on your stoppers.
Your life is a journey, and it is up to you which path you take and in what direction you move. You can be like a fern frond, tightly rolled up and closed, or you can open up to the good things in life. Make up your mind. You can do it!
CHAPTER 3
What is fear?
Why walk hand in hand with fear when you can let go and walk through it?
What is fear? That's a difficult question to answer, for it means a different thing to each of us. There are fears arising from such aspects as danger, expectation of pain, and physical events, which are natural responses, but what about those personal acknowledged and unacknowledged fears — and those hidden fears? Fears are caused by such things as the following:
• judgement
• opinions of others
• incorrect thinking of "self "
• destructive self-talk
• self-doubt
• not being good enough — beautiful or handsome, rich, or educated enough
• not being perfect
• being weak
• change
• making decisions and choices
• the future
The list goes on and on!
Dear reader, you know what fears I mean. They are those fears that you identify with. They are those fears that are there but not acknowledged — all those fears that are within you, the ones behind that wall, the ones that you keep hidden. Maybe you act upon those fears through such things as the following:
• Procrastination
• keeping busy
• perfectionism
• anger
• shyness
• bullying
• low self-esteem
Once again, this list is inexhaustible. I am sure you can think of so many more fears with which you can identify.
Sadly, our thought patterns, inner images, and ultimately our lives can be ruled by any or all of these types of fears. Our inner images are the private pictures that we have of ourselves and those that reflect our own thoughts, feelings, and actions, all of which we mostly keep within. To hide them, we often put on masks that help us cope with life, situations, people, and those inner fears.
Our outer images are the public pictures that we portray outwardly for others to see. These images are more often than not so very different from our inner images and are ones that we start to build upon from childhood and throughout our lives. However, we can end up neglecting and ignoring our inner selves and instead nourish, care for, and tend to our outer images — and the result? We end up living behind walls and feeling empty inside.
If we live behind these walls, we will find ourselves living with and through our fears. But if we choose to break through these walls, we will instead be able to face our fears.
Everything you want is ultimately on the other side of fear, as fear obscures our vision and we begin to only see our limitations. Be an explorer, for the world is filled with so much wonder and magical things.
Life is a promise, and our real voyages of discovery lie not in hiding from our fears or seeing with obscured eyes. Instead, they lie in stepping out with faith, confidence, belief, and having new eyes to see. To step out, we need to acknowledge our fears. We need to recognize them and step through what we fear, going forwards against those contrary beliefs that swirl within our minds. Never turn back. Press onwards until you have overcome.
Even though this may seem so difficult at times, if you truly look inwards, you will become aware of the resources that you have, and therein lies the power to overcome your fears.
Dear reader, my wish for you is to live a fulfilling life, one where you can be your authentic self and live not in fear but in peace, happiness, and love.
May your journey of discovery be free of fear!
CHAPTER 4
Embrace change
Perhaps you are wondering why you should embrace change. Change is difficult, and you might be afraid. Yes, change can be hard to cope with, but when you look back on your life's journey and realise that you have not moved further than your own backyard, how difficult will that be to live with?
Change! What is it? What does it mean? According to the Reader's Digest Oxford Complete Wordfinder, "change" means the following: 1 a the act or an instance of making or becoming different. b an alteration or modification (the change in her expression).
Yes, it is inevitable that change will occur within our lives, and when it occurs, it often happens in directions that we would never have imagined. Sometimes we can cope with and look forward to change, but sometimes it is difficult to deal with and can cause conflict, making us dread it.
Change touches us in so many ways and through so many things — more than can ever be mentioned here — and it can occur worldwide, socially, with family, or for personal reasons. However, our circumstances, attitudes, and choices determine how much we let change affect us. For every change that occurs in our lives, whether we seem to cope with it or not, we will be strengthened if we let it, ready for the next change to come. It is not the way of life to live without knowing a storm or two, and for every struggle, whether internal or external, we will experience change.
Change can either strengthen or defeat. But change is good because growth, strength, and courage are not won through the absence of conflict, whether internal or external. It instead comes from the ability to look at and deal with change!
Change can touch each of us in varying ways, sometimes hardly at all but sometimes so personally that one's very essence itself is affected.
The only person each of us is destined to be is the person that we decide that we want to be and it is how we deal with the changes that come within our voyages of life that makes us that person. It is our choices, as much as the paths and opportunities we take or ignore, that influence the manner with which we deal with change. So each day look around and be happy with the choices that you have made in your life and the changes that have come from them.
Choices influence change, and change influences our lives. So embrace change, as change ultimately makes our voyages of life and discovery complete. It shapes the way it was meant to be for each of us!
The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
— Marcel Proust
CHAPTER 5
Self-esteem — what are your values?
Just what is self-esteem? Self-esteem is the value that you place on yourself. And it is that value that determines your ability to experience satisfaction in your life. The extent to which you can value yourself is influenced and a product of past experiences such as the following:
• Your successes and failures (as you perceive them)
• The support and recognition you receive from others, especially those who have played an important part or who are significant in your life now
• The support, love, and recognition (or maybe lack of it) that you received in your younger years
All of these aspects influence how and what you feel about yourself right now — your self-esteem, your self-worth, your beliefs, and your actions. You can only love yourself to the extent that you know how and to the extent that you have been loved. You are only able to love others to the extent that you love yourself. How telling this is!
So in a nutshell, depending on whatever your self-esteem is — low, medium, or high — and depending on what your self beliefs are, they all reflect how negatively or positively you see, think, and talk to yourself. Perhaps you have limiting beliefs such as the following:
• I'm too young/too old.
• I'm too fat/too thin.
• I'm a woman/a man.
• I'm the wrong culture.
• I'm too rich/too poor.
• I'm too dumb; I don't have the education.
• I'm not perfect enough; I've failed.
• I've had a bad childhood.
Are you holding on to these limiting beliefs as tightly as you can? Are you letting negative self-talk sabotage your future? Are you stuck because of fear? Do you hide behind a wall of hurt, with no gate to get out? Is this you? If it is, think about these four aspects: your beliefs, self-talk, feelings, and actions. All of these are cyclical in nature, with one leading to another, to another, to another.
If you have limiting or negative beliefs, your self-talk will be limiting or negative, your feelings will be limiting or negative, and your actions will be limiting or negative. This cycle will go on and on throughout your life. It will ruin your happiness, your success, and your ability to love. You will never be truly free. The uniqueness of yourself will be lost in a negative cloud of false belief, self-talk, feelings, and actions! So instead confront that belief, that self-talk, that feeling, that action — and believe in yourself!
You are a unique human being. There is no one else in the world, in the universe, like you. You are very special. You are a one of a kind here in this world — here in this time and space — and therefore you are worth your loving yourself!
You are as unique as the young butterfly who flaps her wings for the first time, the single blade of grass that sways and bends against the wind, the newborn baby who cries for his mother. Be proud of yourself and of who you are!
One of the hardest lessons you will learn in life is learning to believe in yourself.
Once you get that, you will realize that you are capable of anything.
— Steven Aitchison
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Musings of a Blogger by Ruth Anne Caukwell. Copyright © 2016 Ruth Anne Caukwell. Excerpted by permission of Balboa Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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