Hope

"The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." ~Winston Churchill

"...Pandora curiously opened her box, and she let out all evils...and yet, something remained inside....Hope.

At the mercy of all evils that she had set free, the world lived in darkness. Evil felt in every corner and seen in everyone's eyes. Trust and faith were lost.

One day, with a heavy heart, Pandora revisited the box, with faith that she might make a change that would fix her mistakes. She slowly opened it, and Hope quickly fluttered out. Rays of light spread amongst all of humanity.

To the Greeks, Hope became more powerful than all the evils combined. Hope trumped any atrocity, bringing balance to otherwise unexplainable situations.

Hope is light, anticipation and optimism. Hope is aspiration and dreams and vision...but true hope can only be magical when it's based in trust. More than trust of another person~we must be able to trust in ourselves~our ability to set a goal and follow through."
~SLK

Today I am faithful that the reality of making human mistakes will triumph over the black and white rules of the world. At the end of the day we are all human and we all make mistakes. I am thankful for a God who humbles me and keeps me from getting too outside of myself. I am thankful for the opportuntiy to be reminded to avoid taking too many things for granted. This weekend I will cling to the people that are closest to my heart, stay hopeful, and will find a sense of joy and peace with whatever the future may bring. I will allow the optimist in me to quite the pessimistic and negative thoughts that are yelling so loudly I am not able to think straight. I will move forward on my journey ensuring a continuation of my mission to continue of inspiring individuals to obtain a healthier lifestyle moves forward regardless of the location, avenue, or room. Inspiration happens in every corner every day. It does not need a title or desk to sit behind. It needs a captive crowd that is willing to step up to the challenge.

Seasons of change

"Change is growth. Growth is life." ~willPower Team

I love this time of year. I prefer the colder days to the warmer ones for obvious reasons, but it's not about cold or warm weather. It's about the opportunity to embrace change.  Yes, I said it...embrace change. It is during this season that all of the planning for January programming really ramps up. Its the oppportunity to take a look at the past 10 months and try to find nuggets of beauty and identify false gold. As the wellness department at my Y enters the budget season, I see bright lights that lead the way for change to actually occur. It is this time of the year when I am afforded the chance to put my visions of where I think we should be into play. Its also the season for change to occur within me. Year after year I find that I turn my thoughts internally and begin to identify areas in my life that need change.

I believe that we are all change agents. The power lies within to change or challenge a situation that may be taking up too much space. That is the most amazing thing about change. It really has less to do with our environment and  more about our mindfullness of the direction we want our lives to take. I often find it funny when I hear people say that they "hate change". Sometimes I want to say, "Sorry friend, change is part of life. Maybe you should find a way to deal with it". As I use an enormous amount of will power to keep my mouth shut I can't help but to also think, "Does this person or group of people not look in the mirror? Change is always looking right back at them." I have found more so in the last couple of years that the changes in my life are most evident in my face. I am finding that as I grow a tad bit older each year I am graced with beautiful rites of passage under my eyes, and my the emphasis of my smile is more apparent even when I am not smiling. You may ask, "Is there ever a time when you are not smiling?" Yes, there is. Fortunately those times are rare. Change is an empowering opportunity to take the circumstances of your life and divert the current path to a healthier one.

When one begins a journey of change she will find resistance in every direction. It becomes difficult to stay the course and walk the rocky path of uncertainty. The uncertainty often comes from a place of insecurity. We become insecure about the outcomes of the directional change we have started. Our self confidence begins to slip and before we know it we have given up and are resolved in the fact that the new direction would have never worked anyway. You should stop to consider all that you learned on the journey before it got too tough and you began to give into the resistance. Valueable lessons can be learned from a failed attempt to change.

My challenge for you is to look for opportunities to create positive changes in your life or see the changes taking place as a wonderful part of life. If you try something and it doesn't really work consider yourself lucky that you can always change directions again.

"How people treat us is their karma, how we react is ours." ~Wayne Dyer

When you are happy and content with your own life, you act in kind, happy and loving ways toward everyone around you. As within, so without, and no matter how mean people might act toward you at times, you will stay perfectly serene and peaceful, responding in loving to their behavior -- for that is who you are, and you give out that which is within.

I have been asked and it has been brought to my attention more times than I can count that my happiness is evident in every aspect of my life. In my 5 and half years at the Benbrook Community Center YMCA I have experienced ups and downs. In this organizational movement the pressure to stand out and stay ahead is high. We may be the Y and seen as the all loving organization where you can donate (yes, we are a charity), add years to your life by changing your unhealthy habits, learn to swim, take your children while you work, and you name it. Members of YMCA's are very passionate about their branch. We like to call it their "home branch". It is like home in many ways. For Y employees, we feel like we live here. For our members, you feel like you have a place to just be as you are, and belong. That is important to us..as it should be. When there is this level of support, call to action, close relationships, and passion flowing through each building we discover many things about ourselves as Y members and Y employees. Just like in every family we will have disagreements. We may not see eye to eye on various aspects of our second home. All of this to say, that from time to time we experience heated moments when each side is squeezed. An example:

I had the opportunity to sit with a long time member and cancer survivor a few weeks ago. I will not reveal his name, but he and I have a long relationship. I first met this gentleman while sitting in on a heated discussion about space allocation in our facilty as it pertained to the the Active Older Adult programs. At the time I was 8 1/2 months pregnant. The member was very upset, and from where he was sitting I was the perfect target to unload everything from why his complimentary coffee was cold to why the Active Older Adult program could not have their own room or facility. Unbenounced to him, my blood pressure was sky rocketing. I excused myself in enough time to get to my prenatal appointment. I was only aloud to the leave the hospital for one day under the watchful care of my mother, who is a Labor Nurse after that interaction. Little did this member know, but I delivered my son a week after this interaction, but it did not matter.  I assured him that we were not disrespecting this group of individuals and that we must serve a large population of community members and promised I'd deliver his message loud and clear to my supervisor at the time.

Fast forward 4 years....my son is now a healthy 4 1/2 year old and the joy of my life. I never told this man that I was sure he sent me straight to delivery after his intense pressure and hostile conversation. I simply let it go. I have had subsequent interactions with this man since our first encounter so I felt okay that our next conversation would proceed in a very pleasant manner. And it did. He asked me to sit down and he proceeded to tell me that in the last 2 or 3 years I have been a completely different person. I have lost 60 or so pounds. I walk around like I don't have a care in the world. I am confident and no longer show signs of "wear and tear" if you will. (This is very common for Y employees.) He wanted to know what was it that was driving me to this obvious state of happiness.

I laughed, and said it's possible the neon colored Zumba clothes I insist upon wearing every day could have something to do with it. He laughed and said, I think I remember you mostly wearing very conservative clothes and now you don't care if your clothes even match. I told him I thought that was a matter of oppinion. I proceeded to share with him my calling, or personal mission and goal in life. I shared with him that I have had a change in perspective since entering mommyhood. My goal, or mission if you will, is to stand up for what is right. To see people for who they are, not what they look like or what circumstances they come from. To make a positive impact on anyone and everyone who may be open to that. I will live my mission so that my son can see it and learn from it. I want to work hard and play hard. If I am lucky I won't be able to tell the difference between the two. There's no way to measure this type of success. He said, how do you know if you are impacting people in the way you want? I said I don't, and that is the glory of it. You get what you see...orange juice.

"When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out--because that is what is inside. When you are squeezed, what comes out is what's inside." ~Wayne Dyer


I can't tell you exactly what it was that changed my perspective. All I know is that I am a better person for it. There are things I hope will happen in my life, but if they dont' happen...I'm okay with that too.