The inspiring story of the Bamboo tree is much like Life itself - you have to have faith, belief and persistence. It also is a story of stability, structure, and maturity.
In becoming a successful entrepreneur, growing company, or even growing as a person, remember to always be watering your tree, planting roots, and building your foundation.
With persistence, rewards will follow! Never give up!
Your dreams are an untapped power for getting answers to your most difficult problems - health, money, love, purpose…if you can ask it, your dreams can answer. Do you know how to read your messages?
Have you ever wondered why our dreams seem so surreal? That’s because we often dream in metaphors, where the symbols in our dream don’t mean what we think they do. Here are some examples:
○ To dream that you’re reading a weather report means that you’ll move from your current residence
○ To see a photo album indicates you’re unwilling to let go of the past
○ To see or wear pajamas in your dream suggests you need to get some rest and relax
Oftentimes, the symbols of our dreams can have different, and sometimes opposite messages.
○ If you see or hear a horn in your dream, it signifies you need to pay attention to your inner voices and intuition OR you may be bragging and “blowing your own horn”
○ To dream that you’re barefoot represents your playful, relaxed and carefree attitude OR you may have low self-esteem and confidence in yourself
○ To see a newspaper in your dream signifies that new light and insight will be shed on a problem that has been on your mind OR you need to be more vocal and express yourself.
When we interpret these dreams, it’s important to relate to our waking lives, trust our intuition and listen to our inner voices. We intuitively know what our messages are. Being honest with ourselves is paramount to receiving the right message and making the changes we know will bring us the fulfillment and happiness we desire.
Equipped with a basic understanding of how our dreams work, you’re ready to decode your dream. But where do you find a decoder? There are many books available, online and offline, that will provide you with tools of interpretation. We’ve found the most comprehensive, free, and easy to use online resource for interpreting dreams - www.dreammoods.com. Click on the “dream dictionary” on the upper right of the screen and begin searching for the key elements, places, objects, colors, feeling, moods from your dream.
Putting It All Together
Our dreams are an essential tool in our life journey. Ignoring the messages we receive means that the messages get stronger, more painful, less easy to ignore. If you’ve experienced repetitive dreams, they’re one example of messages that aren’t heard or headed.
Approach your dreams with an attitude of personal growth - it’s a journey, not a one-time occurrence or event.
By now, you likely know how important our dreams are for receiving messages. These messages could be for life direction, in answer to our burning questions, or for a personal growth tool. But how do we capture our dreams so we can learn the messages hidden in them?
We often hear from people that they think they don’t dream at all. We would say that you do - you just need to practice the habit of capturing and interpreting them. It’s like riding a bike … a little awkward at first, but then it becomes a habit that you don’t even think about. That’s your goal here:
○ Go to sleep with the intention of remembering your dream. It’s like communicating with your subconscious mind, putting it on notice that your dreams are important, so pay attention.
○ Have a notepad and pen handy by your bed.
○ Immediately when you wake, write down everything you remember about your dream - impressions, feelings, people known and unknown, numbers, names, colors - anything that stands out for you, regardless of how insignificant you think it is.
○ Journal about your dream. Here’s where you can fill in the details of what you remember as you woke as well as the general way you felt in the dream. At first, you may not remember more details, but as you practice your subconscious mind will deliver more details.
Begin capturing your dreams. Very soon you’ll find yourself remembering more detail, more often, with greater clarity.
You may be wondering what our dreams have to do with personal growth. Everything! You see, our dreams are an ancient communication tool with our soul - through our subconscious mind - directing us, coaching us, guiding us to what’s most important for US. It’s not for others - it’s like your own personal life coach right inside of you, dedicated to you and what you want most in life!
What Messages Are We Receiving?
We filter over 60,000 thoughts each and every day. Unfortunately, 90% of those are repetitive thoughts - the same ones we had yesterday … errands to run, choosing what to wear, our route to work, what to eat for lunch … you get the picture. With so much ‘noise’, it’s easy to see why we don’t receive our deepest and most profound messages while going through our daily lives.
That begs the question, “How do we receive our messages and guidance?” Through quieting the mind. This can be done with meditation, (which contrary to uninformed belief, IS simply quieting the mind, not sitting in Yogic positions and chanting) and through our dreams. We’re going to talk about dreams…the message vehicle of your soul.
It’s All About You
Something magical happens when we go to sleep…we turn off our conscious mind. You know, the one that races all day long with tens of thousands of thoughts? How can we possibly get answers to our most burning questions and problems when we’re distracted by our ‘daily’ thoughts and responsibilities!
Dreams are this magical place where we work on our waking problems and live out our true desires in life. They’re also a place where we receive our messages - course corrections, comments and instructions, special information about your life and its direction, as well as serving as a creative channel for those most important things to you. This makes dreams a valuable resource for living a life of purpose and passion. The special information you receive is for you and you alone.
Now, knowing how important our dreams are, can you see how important it is for our personal growth to capture our dreams?
“Every problem is a question trying to ask itself…
Every question is an answer trying to reveal itself…
Every answer is an action or way of life trying to show up.”
~ Michael Beckwith, Spiritual Leader - Agape Live
A New Approach to Adversity
Face the adversity in your life head-on and ask better questions:
- What does this adversity mean; what’s the lesson here?
- What course correction do I need to make?
- What habits to I need to change or replace?
- What gift am I ignoring that is trying to express itself?
Or maybe the adversity is really just a signal to do something that you’ve always wanted to do, but never gave yourself permission to do. The world is full of thousands of people that have re-defined their lives while in the midst of personal turmoil - death of a loved one, divorce, financial ruin - the result? Happier, more fulfilling and rewarding lives!
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going
You’re a person of power - or rather empowerment. Just like your physical muscles, your empowerment muscle needs exercise. You do this by acting on inspired thought. Remember those great questions you asked? By focusing on the right questions instead of trying to “fix” the problem, insight will now come to you in a way that you’ll understand. Acting on that inspired thought not only builds your empowerment muscle, but it will amaze you how life answers come back to you in a miraculous way.
Becoming
Life is about becoming. Becoming the person you were meant to be, living the life you were meant to live. Adversity comes into our lives to grow us to the next level - to become more of ourselves.
When you approach adversity, not as obstacles in your path but as stepping stones, you open yourself up to your own personal growth and the treasure it holds. The adversity in your life can give birth to a whole new way of living. One that’s based in abundance principles instead of scarcity thinking!
Stay awake, stay aware. Never let crisis go to waste.
Life balance suggests life is static, and we all know this isn’t true. We’re either living or dying - changing and growing or winding down. It’s the same principle in the different areas of our lives; when one area fades away in importance, another will take it’s place. That’s where the natural flow lies.
So, how do you create balance in your crazy life? Focus…
○ Know that you can’t do it all. You know who I’m talking about - you’re not Superwoman (or Superman)…okay, maybe you are, but you still can’t do it all. Accepting this will go a long way to ridding yourself of self-inflicted and unnecessary stress.
○ Focus on the most important areas of your life right now. Is that career, financial, family, health? Just focus on two areas to begin. Once you’ve mastered those, juggle in another area. Remember, focus on what’s most important.
○ Delegate. An easy word, not so easy to implement for many of us. We think that if we delegate we will lose control. Here’s a secret: you gain control when you delegate - control of your life, your stress, your time, your happiness. Delegate those not-so-important things to others. It will give them a sense of responsibility and accomplishment, and most importantly, give you time to focus on what’s most important to You.
○ Filter out the non-relevant. We are bombarded with over 60,000 messages every day. Can you imagine if we tried to address each and every one? I don’t even want to think about it! Our subconscious mind will filter out what it decides is irrelevant. It does this by way of what we tell our mind is important, what we consciously focus on. Promise yourself to focus ONLY on what’s most important and let the little things go. They’ll clog your mind and your time and take you into overwhelm again.
○ Get to know yourself. Growth - personal growth. It’s your job to get to know who you are, what you want, what makes you tick, what your purpose in life is…no one else can do this for you. With a better understanding of you, what’s important will take on a deeper meaning and be much easier to achieve. This is a continual process during your life and one of the most rewarding.
Balancing life and finding life-balance is within reach. Knowing ourselves, knowing what’s really important is the key to maintaining our equilibrium in life. You CAN have it all!
Everywhere we go, we hear people say they’re looking for life-balance. We spend enormous amounts of time and money in search of solutions to our hectic lives. Why is it that balance in family, work and relationships seems so elusive? We may be searching for something that just isn’t there…
Life-balance is a myth! Yes, you heard right. There’s no such thing as life balance - at least not on a permanent basis. Let me explain…
The Myth
To say that you have life-balance implies that all areas of your life are in balance - physical, career, financial, relationships, spiritual - you get the picture. It’s impossible to have balance in ALL areas of your life at the same time - physically and emotionally impossible.
Life balance further implies that all areas of your life are created equal. That’s just not true. At different times in your life, different areas will demand more of your attention. For instance, when you’re in your early twenties your focus may be more on career, while later in life it may be on family - your growing family.
Life Balance - What it Really Is
What we’re really searching for is a place where the things that are most important to us can fit into our daily lives, while giving us a sense of peace, connectedness, and confidence in our achievements. We’ve overcomplicated life in the twenty-first century, losing touch with who we are, what we really want, and what is possible for us. Finding balance is as individual and unique as each of us - because we’re each different, have different needs and wants, and are on different life paths.
Contrary to popular belief, we CAN have it all - it just takes focus and an eye to personal growth.
A good attitude helps you and those around you - it sets you apart, it makes you memorable. People want to be around people with useful attitudes. This is essential when it comes to forming successful relationships in business and social environments. Here are some tips to engage your useful attitude:
Know what you want - useless attitudes come from people who don’t know what they want, or they focus on what they don’t want. This is never a recipe for success. Get clear on what you want. People who know what they want tend to get it because they’re focused on the positive.
Know your desired outcome - going into any situation, know what your desired outcome is. If you’re expecting a confrontation with your boss as you go into the weekly meeting, you’ll likely get it. However, knowing that you want to make a favorable impression so you’ll be noted for promotion will have you walking into the meeting smiling and prepared with all the relevant information you’ve been asked to provide.
Refocus and Adjust - at first this process may seem a little awkward, but stick with it and soon you’ll be doing it naturally, without thought. When you see yourself coming across in a way that doesn’t serve you, refocus your thoughts on what you want - your desired outcome - and adjust your attitude to fit.
Your attitude is infectious - whether it’s a good or bad one. The good news is, you’re free to choose what kind of attitude that reflects who you are - or who you want to be.
Attitude. We see it in our body language, hear it in our tone of voice and feel it in our bodies. Our attitude can attract or repel others and sets the quality of our thoughts, our relationships and our lives - it governs our success … or lack of it.
It stands to reason then, that consciously adopting an empowering attitude would be the chosen course for most anyone in getting what we want. So why don’t we? For many, it could be that we don’t know that our attitudes may be hurting us.
How Your Attitude Shows
Your attitude controls your mind and your mind delivers the body language, tone of voice and the words you use. When you’re happy, you look happy, sound happy and use happy words. Your body just doesn’t know how to lie - it’s working behind the scenes, expressing your useful or useless attitude.
You’re in the grocery store, tired after a long day at work. When you finally get to the checkout, the clerk responds to your “Hello, how are you?” with a frown and complaint about how tired she is. She’s so busy telling the grocery bagger that she needs a vacation but she didn’t get the raise she asked for, that she doesn’t see she’s practically throwing your fresh produce to her co-worker. This is a really useless attitude.
The next check stand over, you hear the cashier greet her customer in a friendly voice, clearly smiling and interested in the shopper’s day. You see the customer stand a little taller as some positive attention is directed her way. As that customer walks away, you see a bright smile on her face.
You can’t help thinking that you got in the wrong line.
Which person would you rather be - the disgruntled employee, or the happy and friendly cashier? Which line would you prefer to be in?
It’s okay to have ‘bad’ days - we all do. Just remember to check your attitude before sharing it with others. Next time, we’re share some tips on how to cultivate a “useful” attitude.
Attitude is everything. It can ‘make‘ or ‘break‘ you in every single area of your life - no exceptions. Many of us think we have a pretty good attitude…but do we really? What does your attitude look like?
2 Types of Attitudes
There are 2 types of attitudes - Useful and Useless. Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it. Simply stated, useful attitudes make you feel good and are the major causative factor in getting what you want. Alternatively, useless attitudes don’t make you feel good and keep you from your desired outcome.
Useful attitudes:
Cheerful, interested, curious, friendly, smiling, positive-focused, solution-oriented, optimistic, creative, helpful.
Useless attitudes:
Complaining, frowning, angry, argumentative, blaming, disinterested, distracted, pessimistic, miserable
We’ve all displayed traits of both useful and useless attitudes. What’s important is to make a habit of choosing from the useful list more often than the useless if we’re going have any hope in getting what we want.
What kind of attitude are you displaying most often? How’s that working for you? Join us on Monday as we share how your attitude shows in your body language, tone of voice, and the words you use.
