Posted on by BWThomas

What do we know for sure that isn’t true?

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The starting point for a better world is the belief that it is possible. Norman Cousins

My grandson tells me with certainty that lettuce and apples don’t go together. He’s talking about my purple cabbage apple dish on the table for dinner the other night. He doesn’t differentiate between cabbage and lettuce but knows what he knows. Where does this certainty come from, and how many of us suffer from the certainty of things which are not true?

How many of us have been held back by believing things that weren’t true, we didn’t have enough, guts, determination, smarts, luck, education, opportunity, money, looks, courage, etc? Looking back I see so many missed opportunities, why didn’t I see them when there was time to make the most of them? Taking advantage of opportunities is hard work, and sometimes I realize I didn’t work as hard as I should have to make things happen.

I’ve been better at helping my husband in his business than I was at trying to develop one of my own. It is sobering to realize all the things we coulda, shoulda, and woulda done, if only. What was holding us back?

Perhaps life unfolds as it should, and ideas and opportunities find their home with those willing to do what needs to be done. Even the best of us can’t do everything, and take advantage of every opportunity, but it seems some people have vision and some don’t.

What if a good life is learning from our missteps and our accomplishments, but what if we learn the most from our failures? Not wanting to fail or make a mistake leads to a smaller life. Every time we risk failure, we risk success and sometimes we might fear success just as much. What would happen if we took the chance, became a big success, and our lives changed forever? We love our life and worry we might not love our new circumstances as much.

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives. Tony Robbins

Do we want to stand out and fit in at the same time? Do we have to choose one? Life is about choices, and what we choose to believe might be one of the greatest choices we make. What we believe about ourselves, the world, and what is possible creates our habits, and our habits create our lives. Self-control might be the most important achievement we can attain. Aristotle said, “We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”

Self-control allows us to rule over ourselves, and create habits that work for us instead of against us. What if our habits hold us back the most, and if we develop better habits, we create a better life? What if courage is a habit, hard work is a habit, but it isn’t just working hard, it’s learning what to work hard at?

What if what holds us back the most is our beliefs, habits, comfort zone, and fears? What if a good life is available to all of us if we make the right choices, create the right habits, and take advantage of opportunities in front of us? What if small changes over time create big dividends in our lives? What if not doing the small thing holds us back, we could do the small thing, but we want a big thing, not realizing by refusing to make small changes in the right direction, we never see the big changes it would become.

Life is about choice, and we choose what to believe about ourselves and others. We can believe lettuce and apples don’t go together, or can we expand the boundaries of our beliefs, and perhaps our lives?

We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon. Konrad Adenhauer

In order to gain new experiences, to expand your horizons, to give fate – or serendipity or whatever you want to call it – a chance. And that only happens if we say yes to things. Charlotte Lucas

It is the power of belief that causes things to happen in our lives. Zeenat Merchant Syal

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Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to everyone who has left a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Choices change the trajectory of our lives.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes you do to accomplish it. This will always be far greater value that what you get. Jim Rohn

If we told someone our highest priority is our family, would they think it by looking at us? It makes sense everyone’s priority is their family, what is there to prioritize above family? A lot of us know a better diet and exercise would make us healthier, but we can’t quite integrate it into our lives. We might know we could do something to create a stronger family, but we have to do more than think about changes we need to make, we have to take the chances and opportunities when they present themselves and build on what we already have.

What if we are trying to think too big when a small decision in the right direction is what we need? In Hal Elrod’s book, “The Miracle Equation” he talks about asking his son what do you want to do, we can do anything at all. His son said, “I want you to play with me in my room.”

Someone said if we want happy kids, “Spend half the money, and twice the time on them.” Our little grandson at two-and-a-half wants to go wherever we go. “We go lunch,” he’ll say. We won’t always be able to spend this time with him. My parents didn’t live close so they couldn’t do little things with my kids, and by moving far away from home I robbed them of the chance to know their grandparents well.

Grandparents are a luxury some of us never get, we live far from them, or they’ve already passed. If we are lucky enough to live close to our grandchildren we can play a part in each other’s lives.

I’m thinking these thoughts as this week would have been Mom’s one-hundredth birthday, I lost her but gained a granddaughter this year.

If we are part of a family we will experience the pain of loss, but if we don’t build a family we face empty years. If we are the architects of our lives, we don’t have complete control, and many would have liked to build a family that never could.

Wherever we are in our lives, we have choices to make, and those choices will change the trajectory of our lives. A small change can make a big difference. If we don’t have enough people in our life we can join groups of like-minded people, or people who aren’t like us we want to learn from.

The world we live in – the life we perceive – is a perfect reflection, a mirror image, of our internal reality. Patrick Connor

We can take a class or even a one-night workshop, learn something new, or get back into something we did years ago. Our lives contract and expand, we need to figure out what cycle we are in and make the best of it.

Is it time to bring some form of creativity into our lives, or time for a new companion to walk with, perhaps a four-legged friend, or connecting with a neighbor who also would like a walking partner? Maybe we have too many activities and need to cut back. Life is about choices at every age and every stage. We need to be willing to widen our horizons if we want change in our lives, to get out of our comfort zone even if it is just an overture of friendship to someone we meet.

Is there a change we know we should make, and could make without upending everything in our lives to make it better?

Be willing to be uncomfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable. It may get tough, but it’s a small price to pay for living a dream. Peter McWilliams

In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. James Allen

It’s a lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself. Muhammad Ali

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Remembrance Day 2024

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In Flanders fields the poppies blow. Between the crosses, row on row.That mark our place; and in the sky. The larks, still bravely singing, fly. Scarce heard amid the guns below.

John McCrae

Remembrance Day is a day to remember sacrifice and service. I’m seeing photos of service men and women on Facebook. What a group of brave men and women. Mom, my fountain of information on the Second World War and the great depression died this year, and now I have to rely only on history books.

She told me her first husband never felt he fit anywhere like he had in the army. At our writer’s group on Saturday, I heard a quote, “What hardens an egg, softens a potato.” We don’t know when we are in circumstances if we will be the egg or the potato. The army made people into people they didn’t know they could be, and it destroyed lives, even if they came out with all limbs still attached.

Will we rise above the circumstances or be destroyed by them, and is it our choice? I saw a post on Facebook about spilled coffee and how whatever is in our cup is what we’ll spill, so we need to fill our cup with gratitude, joy, love, understanding, forgiveness, etc. But, one person responded to that post as if it was blaming the victim.

I don’t think people should not feel wronged by injustice. Wrongs that can be righted should be, and equal opportunity should be offered to all as much as possible.

Terrible things have happened to people who overcame them and lived great lives, and some have given up in the face of adversity and never rose again. Is this the choice, not what happens to us, but how we react?  

Patriotism is not dying for one’s country, it is living for one’s country. Perhaps that is not as romantic but it is better. Agnes Macphail

We don’t know what will happen in our lives, or how we will react. We think we will take things in stride, roll with the punches, and overcome adversity, but until it happens we’ll never know. We don’t even know if it is better to become harder or softened by life. Too hard is brittle, and too soft is mush, but somewhere in between is the sweet spot.

I was blessed to have a mother who lived through a lot, life threw a lot of punches at her, especially in the early years, but she came through with a good outlook on life.

Is a lot of life what we make of the circumstances we find ourselves in? Do we make things better or worse by the attitude we choose? Is choosing our mindset within our control?

We owe a debt to the men and women who served. Growing up and living in peace and plenty isn’t something we can take for granted. We never know when we might have to take a stand, and we won’t all agree on when, how, and what to fight for. Can we all say, I am willing to do, what I can do for my country?

Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives. John Adams

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. John F. Kennedy

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. G.K. Chesterton

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.

Posted on by BWThomas

Journaling is a practice we can use to live our best life.

Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Your journal is like your best friend. You don’t have to pretend with it, you can be honest and write exactly how you feel. Bukola Ogunwale

Unwavering faith and extraordinary effort lead to great things in our lives. One of the worst things we do is give up before we reach the end of the time we’ve set to achieve our goal. Often the last days, weeks, or months make a big difference, but it can be tempting to quit before we reach our goal, when it seems far away.

What if failure happens when we give up too soon? We don’t set enough goals, or we don’t have faith in ourselves to go after what we want. Journaling is a practice that can help us sort out what we want, and if we read what we’ve written over the years we will realize many of our fears never came to pass, and by putting them on the page we freed our mind to concentrate on other things.

Journaling is a process we can use to manage anxiety, and healthily express our feelings, and it can help us identify what makes us anxious. It might help us become aware of unhealthy thought patterns and challenge ourselves to change them. When I think this, I should think this instead. When I’m feeling this way I should go for a walk.

In our journal we can question our thoughts, try on ideas, and investigate what interests us, we can figure out who we are and who we would like to become.

I’ve come across ideas on the negative effects of journaling, and as someone who has kept a journal for almost fifty years, I question what could be negative about it. If we read our journals we might think we were more negative than we are, because we tend to dump our negative feelings onto the page. This frees our mind for the positive things. Our journal is not a repository for everything going on in our lives – at least mine isn’t.

I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Joan Didion

A journal is not another thing to tick off on my to-do list. It is not an onerous practice. It is something I get to do, not something I have to do. If you watch videos or read articles on journaling you will find each person that journals has a different way of doing it. Each one of us must create a practice that works for us, and we shouldn’t beat ourselves up for not writing in it as often as we think we should, or not creating a pretty journal.

One of the reasons for putting illustrations in our journal is sometimes we can’t express in words what is going on in our lives, or we don’t want what we are thinking to be found by someone and used against us. We can use Neurographic art which is dumping what is in our mind onto the page as a scribble and then embellishing it and turning it into a work of art by darkening lines, creating and adding shapes, and adding color, or leaving it black and white.

We can create patterns using straight lines, C-shapes, S-shapes, circles, and dots. We can create unlimited patterns, and there are set patterns called Zen tangles which are copy-written patterns. Anyone can use the patterns but only certified teachers can teach them, and the same goes for Neurographic art, but the concepts behind both are simple. I question copywriting patterns as if someone can own the creative process.

Journaling is a practice that can help us create a life we love, become the person we would like to be, and track our growth and goals. One practice I’m adopting from another journal keeper is writing quotes and great ideas inside the front cover, and writing my goals inside the back cover – two spaces I’ve left mostly blank over all these years.

If you want to start a journal let it develop as a practice that fits into your life. If you miss days, weeks, or months of entries, pick it up and write when you are in the mood. I’ve missed days, weeks, and months, but never years.

Your journal will stand as a chronicle of your growth, your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your ambitions, your sorrows, your serendipities. Kathleen Adams

A journal can offer you a place to be someone, anyone, who you want to be. Brian Ledger

Journal what you love, what you hate, what’s in your head, what’s important. Journaling organizes your thoughts; allows you to see things in a concrete way that otherwise you might not see. Kay WalkingStick

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, see archives or categories of posts click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.