Category: #innovation

Cargo Up!

~ blacklilymusings ~ 1 Comment

 

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Every Day we Either Sail or Take on Water.  Staying Still will Always Swamp the Boat.  Most of Us are Pretty Low Riders.  Our Boats are Pretty Cargoed Up.

Burdens, Responsibilities.  All Good Things.  But Unless we are Purposeful and Making Progress, Those Waves are Coming On Over the Bow.

So How Do we Keep the Sputtering and the Stalling to a Minimal?  How do we keep the Clean Fuel Burning and Engines Firing Steadily? For Me, Clean Fuel is Courage.  The Greatest Engine Oil is Hope. Gratitude.

Some Resent the Burdens Laid Upon Their Ship.  And Yes, Too Much is Too Much.  But the Boats with Heavy Burdens are the Most Stable in Stormy Seas.  When there’s Not Enough Cargo,  too much of Our Hull above the Water Line.  We become Top Heavy and Easily Capsizable.

Allow Your Burdens to Hunker You Down on the Sea of Life.  There’s Safety in Our Burdens.  And Plus, the Captain Trusts You with Your Precious Cargo. And we Have the BEST Captain.  Our Burdens are Our Privileges.  Our Responsibilities are Precious.

Love You All So Much!  Can’t even Explain It.

xo

 

So You’ve Been Bullied…

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Everyone at some point has Dealt with a Bully.  Taking your Gentleness as Weakness, they Push You Around.  They Need to Feel Powerful.  Loving to Oppress.  For a Moment they Feed their Need for Power and Relevance through You.

Silently Observe…

Look in their eyes….

You’ll Often See Fear.  Bullies are Afraid Insecure People .  When you can Understand this, it takes their Power Away to Hurt You.

Disarm them with Your Quiet Confidence.  Stay Comfortable in Your Own Skin.  Two Things Often Happen…

Their Attention goes Elsewhere…or as you Role Model Strength and Courage

Sometimes…

The Fear in their Eyes Melts away.  Confidence finds a New Spring in Their Step.

They’ve Become Inspired…

and…

The World Becomes a Little Kinder.  A Little Brighter.

One Bully at a Time.

It’s Worth a Shot…

The Proper Kinda Shot…

 

Watch Out For What You Need

~ blacklilymusings ~ 1 Comment
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need – verb

require (something) because it is essential or very important.

Whatever we Need will Control us.  We think of these things like Our Breath.  Without it we Feel We Die. Fade Into Oblivion.  We become Invisible.  Irrelevant. Purposeless.  Our life  Feels In Vain.

For some its External Validation.  Admiration.  Others, it’s Wealth.  Status.

Some Days we Have It All.  Some Years.  A Golden Decade. An Admiring Tribe of Supporters.  Money and Status Comes Easily.

For Some,  Circumstances Change. What we’ve come to Believe We Need, Slips Away.  We aren’t As Shiny.  Passersby Don’t Look Twice.  Our Bank Accounts Dwindle.  Our Status is a Few Levels Below Amazing.

None of it Matters.  Unless you Need it.  And Need is a Nasty Rollercoaster in Maybe Land. Maybe Today’s the Day.  Maybe this Will Work.  Maybe …Maybe…Maybe.  It’s like a Sipping a Straw in the Very Bottom of a Draining Well.  Mostly Nothing, but Frantic Hope.

So Today I Need Serenity.  It’s Free for the Taking.  I Need Joy.  It’s All Around Me.  I Need Simplicity, and that’s Up to Me.

What we Actually Need is Everywhere in Abundance.

Feeling Grateful.

xo

 

Writing Your Life Objective

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I feel we should be able to describe in a few sentences our Life’s Objective.  When the Dust Settles Over our Finished Lives, what will our Lives Accomplished?  The Ripple Effect of our Lives we Cannot Deny.  Whether it has been One of Good or Not So Good is the Only Variable in Our Control.

So Here’s Mine…

The First Draft Anyway…

I want to Walk Gently.  Love Fiercely.  Be a Lifelong Learner.   Open Minded.  Not Bitter.  Always Grateful.  Ever Hopeful.  To Smile Always.  Cry when Necessary. Embrace Change. Pure in My Thoughts Towards Others. Courageous.

Most of these Characteristics are States of Being.  Because if we aren’t these things, our Accomplishments Don’t Matter.

Accomplishments come to those who first have learned….

To Be.

Here’s To Being!

Let me know your Life Objective!  Can’t Wait to Hear!!

xo

 

The Inner Critic

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One of my Greatest Interview Questions was ….

“How do you Deal with your Inner Critic?”

What if you don’t have one?  The Inner Critic Evaporates into Thin Air as soon as we learn to Live in Compassion.  Walk in Gentleness.  When we Learn to Encourage Ourselves.

Kindness Starts in Your Own Heart For Yourself.  Love and Nurturing Begins With You.

Kindness.  Gentleness.  Love.  Nurturing.  Support.

They are not Action Words First.  They are a Spirit we Live In.  They are a State of Being.  That First Nourishes Our Own Hearts.  Then Extends to Our Families.  Then to our Outer Circle.

Whatever Inner Dialogue we have with ourselves is what we also Extend To Others.

Gentleness is a Great Leader.  Love Gives Wind.  Kindness is the Greatest Way to Strengthen the Strengths in Others.

Harshness.  Judgment.  Force.  Criticism .  These Ugly Traits will never Produce Good Results.  Certainly not in ourselves.  Certainly not in others.

We all have an Inner Voice.  Let’s Train it to Be Kind.  Always Supportive.  Always Grateful.  Always Compassionate.

First to Ourselves.  Then to our Fellow Man.

xo

The Ruins of Rushing

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Sometimes we have an Urge to Utilize Force.   We see Waiting and Patience as the Enemy to Fruition.  Not understanding the Actual Word.

Fruit.ion.  

Fruit starts as a Tiny Little Bud.  Then Passersby enjoy the Beauty of the Bud, then the Fragrance of the Flower.  We Find Hope in the Unripened Fruit, and Love the Memories of the Taste of It.  We enjoy the Wonderful Butterflies of Anticipation.  We Dream of the Possibilities of the Fruit.  It Gives Hope for the Future.  Of Sustenance.  Of Enjoyment.

Everything in Life is a Process.  Whether it Be Personal Growth.  Our Careers.  Our Relationships.  Every Stage is Beautiful.  Culminating in Gorgeous Fruit if all Stages are Embraced.  With Patience.

We are a Society of Rushers.  Instant Gratification.  We are those who Cut Down Trees of Possibility because of our Own Impatience.

Let’s Enjoy the Processes of Life.  In Ourselves and In Others.

Our Dreams will Come to Fruition.  Let’s Create an Environment Conducive to Growth.

No Rushing.

Just Diligence. Warmth. Faith.

 

Hinchcliff & Lee

~ blacklilymusings ~ 1 Comment
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The Greatest Gift I can give myself in our Lovely City of Calgary is to take a little wander down to Hinchcliff & Lee. To visit  John and his Shop Dog.  Cash.  After a lovely meander through the Farmer’s Market with Helen yesterday, we met Beautiful Julianna at The Eden for a Delightful Lunch (a blog on that later under restaurants I love).  A few doors down is my  Favourite City Treat.

It’s the most amazing Trip through Asia at Hinchcliff & Lee.  A Second Generation Establishment.  John’s Mama’s Dream Child come to Fruition.  Always greeted by the most gorgeous caramel floaty haired dog, he’s Shop Dog Number Two.  When I first discovered This Gem, Doggie Jack was meeting me at the door.  Now Cash has taken up the torch, a Little Wilder and Floating His Freak Flag more than Jack.  Cash buries his nose in my purse looking for “Cookies”.  He pulls out my passport and has a solid hold.  I’ll Treasure the Teeth Marks.

John is a Gorgeous Soul.  I can’t even Explain It.  So Earnest.  So Engaged.  As Full of Character as his beautiful Asian Antiques.  I love the way he crosses his arms and gets that faraway look in his eyes and you know a Great Story is going to be Told.  An Asian Tattoo (I’ve yet to ask the meaning) scrawled up his forearm.  He pushes up his dark rimmed glasses with his middle finger, and tears fill his eyes.  His Papa has Passed.  We stand sharing his sorrow, tears rimming our eyes as he Gathers his Emotions.  He’s one of those People who make you Glad to Be Alive.  Enjoying this Journey of Life. He’s Got Passion.  Heart.

We wander through the Pergolas.  Paintings. The Heavy Wood Tables and Armoires in the Asian Reds and the Gorgeous Blue and White Porcelain.  Downstairs is another Treasure Trove.  The Weight of History of both the Old Building and Asia Mingling in the Summer Air.   Upstairs the floor is Creaking So Lovely under the feet of other Happy Saturday Wanderers.

I’m Glad it Graces our City.  I Highly Recommend a Trip to Inglewood to Hinchcliff & Lee.  Behind the Wooden Door is the Cutest Shop Dog eating the Sales Tickets.  The Shop Owner John and His Glorious Tales both New and Old.  Asian Antiques that will Take your Breath Away.

It’s Worth the Trip.

 

 

 

 

 

Morning Serenades

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I awoke to the electric guitar floating over the morning airwaves.  Two houses down is a garage band.  It’s an odd time to be practising your chords, and if it didn’t Stir My Belly maybe I would’ve been a little annoyed.  After all, the electric guitar is rather ear piercing more than it’s melodic.  But it Stirred Me.

When I pondered why it awoke  Butterflies Of Excitement in my stomach I realized it made me Grateful….

Grateful for Music.  For Passion.  For Those Who Dream.

It made me grateful for another day to Ignite My Own Passion.  To work towards my dreams.  To embrace this beautiful land of promise.  To allow Hope to blow its soft gentle wind into my sails again.

I Inhale and listen to his Happy Although Screechy Chords, and I Smile.

Thank you Garage Band Electric Guitar Player.  Thanks for the Inspiration.

I’ll Sketch My Dreams Today.  Because of You.

 

Dreaming Big Starts Little

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We all have Big Dreams.  We all want to Go Places.  We dream of Reinventing, Rejuvenating, Restoring.  Along life’s journey hobbies Get Shelved.  Dreams Too.  The Pertinent and Immediate becomes all consuming.

So Here’s to Starting Little.

Do you want to Climb Mountains?  Let’s Start with Practising Endurance. Without Grit, no mountain can Be Scaled.  Practice Endurance.

At our Careers. In our Homes. In our Relationships.

 Pushing past Comfortable and Into Excellence.

 

Do you want to be an Artist?  Be okay with Failure.  With the Outcome of your Pursuits being a Caricature of Your Vision.

 Be Okay with Starting Over.  From Scratch. Next time you’ll be Closer to your Masterpiece.

 

Do you want to be an Inventor?  Be a Creative Problem Solver.

Every Day in the most Mundane Tasks.

Think Outside the Box

When you Clean Your Car.  Do Your Laundry.  Shop for Groceries.

The Greatest Ingenuity comes from Rethinking Old Patterns.

 

Let’s Start Little to do Big Things.

xoxo

 

 

 

 

It’s Like Riding A Bike

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We’ve heard this saying forever.  It basically means whatever we are trying for the first time, once we figure it out we will never forget.  Sometimes this can be a problem.

Maybe we learned a dysfunctional way to pedal the Life Bike.  Generations of dyfunctional pedalling.  Someone told you to go a full rotation backwards before going forwards.  Resulting in a lot of stop and starting and poor forward motion.

Sometimes in life, we need to learn how to ride the Life Bike again.  Relearn a more efficient way.  Sometimes our teachers didn’t know the best way forward.  Sometimes the only Life Bike we had to get us through the early years was rusty and missing gears.  We learned to pedal the bike, but it was no small achievement.

So, Huge Kudos to those who learned to ride on rusty gears.  You’re the coolest freestyle riders I know.  You’ve developed muscles so many “New Life Bike Every Year” people didn’t.  But maybe, it’s time to really relook at “Learning to Ride Again”.

Find your own way forward.  The way of easy riding.  Just think of the distance you can go with all the grit and determination you learned from those rusty gears.

Here’s to Freestylin…

xoxo

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