Let It Shine

Summer Music Series: photo courtesy of Gianni via morguefile.comThis post is the ninth in my ten-week, 2013 ‘Summer Music Series‘: a collection of articles inspired by some of the songs and music lyrics that inspire me and make me think… Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss any instalments: not only is the series free, but when you sign up you’ll also get a complimentary copy of my Dreamsmith Guide to Creating a Life You Love.  

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Where in your life do you shine the brightest?

When I think of someone ‘shining’, my first thought used to be of someone on stage or at the front of a room somewhere, their presence lighting up the the people around them; or perhaps they were winning something: a race, an award or a contest.  ‘Shining’ definitely was aligned in my mind with performance, mastery and visibility – some kind of demonstrated excellence in speaking, acting, playing music, athletic prowess, or being the recognized champion of some other difficult-to-master and/or generally coveted skill.

This idea of ‘shining’ is indeed one of the dictionary definitions of the term.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary includes the definition “to be eminent, conspicuous, or distinguished“, all of which mean to be famous, noticed and ‘commanding great respect’.

But of course there are other definitions of the word too, including the less-flashy but equally impressive “to perform extremely well“.

Ottawa-based music artist Jeremy Fisher sings about a lot of things in his song, Let It Shine, but by virtue of the title itself, the song is about recognizing your light and then letting it shine full force – ‘performing extremely well‘, perhaps – whether or not anyone pays attention or you’re otherwise rewarded for it.

As I’ve gotten older, my interpretation of what it means to ‘shine’ has shifted more toward this second definition of shining.  Every one of us has certain areas or tasks in our lives where we ‘perform extremely well‘.  Sometimes those areas aren’t particularly noticed by others, or certainly not recognized with awards onstage.  Often, the areas in which we perform extremely well – where we ‘shine’ – are not anything ‘visible’ or famous at all.  

Let it shine - photo courtesy of 123rf.com

 

We may never perform onstage, win an award, secure the title or be publicly recognized for our performance, but when we shine in our day-to-day lives, we do light up the people around us…because we’re lit up from inside ourselves.  

 

When we pay attention to the tasks that we do, recognize the ones which we perform extremely well and then do more of those things, it leaves us with a great feeling of accomplishment, personal satisfaction and worth.  

Sometimes people feel like if their work isn’t ‘sexy’ – I dunno, like giving an Oscar-worthy performance in a mega-hit on the silver screen, or being named CEO of a Fortune 500 company – that it’s somehow less worthy, or that if they were reaaaaaally ‘living their passion’, they’d surely be doing something more noticeable.  But when we show up in our lives and get to act in our zone of what consultant Kristen Wheeler refers to as our ‘native genius‘, it leaves us feeling fueled, energized and completely on purpose.  

I heard Kristen speak recently, and I loved listening to her differentiation between knowing what we love vs. knowing what we love doing (especially as it relates to ‘doing something for a living’).  They can be two very different things.  For instance, I might love to go dancing and if that’s the case I should certainly seek as many opportunities as I can to do that, but that doesn’t mean I want to dance for a living.  Nor ought it to, necessarily.  (If you saw me dancing, you’d know exactly what I’m talking about ;)).  The things that we love to do that are more apt to translate into work that we love, are the things that align most closely with what we naturally do and who we naturally are anyway.

You might be perfectly capable, for example, with a lot of practice and determination, of going out and earning a public speaking award, but if you are naturally someone who only speaks up in small groups of people you know well, and tend to be in a total zone of performance excellence when you’re doing more introverted, creative and/or detailed work, you’re apt to feel more energized, successful and fueled by doing those things that you’re naturally inclined to do.

By all means, go out and stretch yourself, learn new skills, grow and expand your range of abilities, but at the same time, allow yourself to recognize, honour and respect the tasks and roles that allow you to operate in your personal zone of native genius.

When you do, you’ll be letting it shine in the easiest and brightest of ways.

Live Like You Were Dying

Summer Music Series: photo courtesy of Gianni via morguefile.comThis post is the eighth in my ten-week, 2013 ‘Summer Music Series‘: a collection of articles inspired by some of the songs and music lyrics that inspire me and make me think… Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss any instalments: not only is the series free, but when you sign up you’ll also get a complimentary copy of my Dreamsmith Guide to Creating a Life You Love.  

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A man in his early forties, thinking he had a lot of life before him, gets a diagnosis that stops him on a dime.  He spends most of the next days looking at the x-rays, talking about the options and talking about ‘sweet time’.  And when it finally hits him that this might really be the end, this realization turns out to be the catalyst that finally prompts him to actually get out there and start living.

The lyrics to Tim McGraw’s Live Like You Were Dying give us a sobering reminder that you never know whether today will be your last.  When you’re faced with a terminal diagnosis* like that, it certainly brings into focus the things that are really important.  

But what if we didn’t need a wake-up call like that, in order to live every day to the fullest?

What if every morning, we each made the decision to live like we were dying?

Live like you were dying (photo courtesy of 123rf.com)The reality is that from the day we are born, every one of us is dying.  Some of us are dying faster than others, but all of us – regardless of gender, race, socioeconomic status or any other factor – are headed toward the same ultimate end.  

We will all have the experience of taking our last breath.

Yet the intention of McGraw’s song, as is the intention of this post, is not to be morose and to dwell on this particular inevitable, universal experience that comes with being human…

The intention is to remind us to live our lives.  

Like, really live them.

Now, your idea of ‘living your life’ might not involve skydiving, rocky mountain climbing or spending 2.7 seconds riding a bull named Fu Man Chu, like it did for the guy in McGraw’s song, but what would you want to do if you knew you had only a finite amount of time left to live?

What’s on your bucket list?  

Find some time today if you can, or this week at least, to ponder that idea – again, not in a morose way, but as an exercise in re-focusing your life and your daily activities on the things that really, in the big picture of your life, are the most important to you.

Don’t let your dreams sit on the backburner until it’s too late.  Find a way to do (or to take a step towards) something on your bucket list each and every day.  And at the same time, don’t just live your life in anticipation of some ‘future’ bucket list adventure either: hug someone you care about, reach out to a friend, gaze at the stars, savour your food, light a candle, smell the flowers…   

What will you do this week to make sure that you’re living like…you’re living? 🙂

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*speaking of terminal diagnoses: one of my favourite doctors and game-changers, Lissa Rankin, is on a mission to heal health care by helping patients and clinicians alike to re-focus on holistic health care rather than solely on ‘disease management’.  In her recently-published book, Mind Over Medicine, she shares research about the power that patients and their physicians have by taking this new (and yet ancient) approach to health and healing, and how doing so has measurable influence on health and recovery from all kinds of illness.  If you or someone you love are struggling with health issues, I encourage you to pick up the book as soon as possible.  You can also listen to my interview with Lissa.

The Rest Is Still Unwritten

Summer Music Series: photo courtesy of Gianni via morguefile.comThis post is the seventh in my ten-week, 2013 ‘Summer Music Series‘: a collection of articles inspired by some of the songs and music lyrics that inspire me and make me think… Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss any instalments: not only is the series free, but when you sign up you’ll also get a complimentary copy of my Dreamsmith Guide to Creating a Life You Love.  

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I love the feeling of sitting down to write: ideas swirling around in my head, waiting to be articulated, edited and reworked until they’re down on paper in a way that feels right. (ok, I almost never write my pieces on actual paper any more in favour of my computer screen, but you know what I mean.)

Other times, staring at that blank page feels daunting, and even after several rounds of edits I sometimes feel that the words aren’t exactly conveying the full message in the way I’ve intended.  But even though it may not all be ‘perfect’, I still write because the only way to really get better at something – no matter how much learning you undertake – is to actually go out and do it.  

Isn’t the craft of writing a beautiful metaphor for living your life?

You can read, watch and learn from all the how-to, self-help and personal-development material out there, but the only way to actually get anywhere with it is to be actively out in the world, living your life.

This idea is articulated beautifully in Natasha Bedingfield’s song Unwritten, which I love as much for it’s catchy and uplifting tune as I do for the deeper meaning behind the lyrics:

I am unwritten
Can’t read my mind
I’m undefined
I’m just beginning
The pen’s in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten... (photo courtesy of 123rf.com)Your life is like a blank page before you. No matter what was written on your pages yesterday or last month or ten years ago, every day you wake up to a blank page…and you get to decide whether you want to take the story in a different direction, to add new characters or write out some of the old, or to make new kinds of decisions and choices.

The pen’s in your hand.

Sometimes you may find yourself suffering a case of writer’s block, feeling completely unsure of what to write next. There might be just a jumble of bad ideas, or no ideas at all.  When that happens, you can do what writers do to get past their stuck points: find a change of scenery, go for a walk, do something different.  Stop forcing it and allow your creative flow to return. (Kate Gardner spoke at length about the creative process in my Do What You Love Telesymposium, if you’re looking for more on that subject).

Perhaps part of the problem might be that you’re looking through a ‘dirty window’. Maybe your perceptions of what’s possible are ‘off’ because you’re looking at things through a caked-on layer of limiting beliefs based on what’s happened in the past.  Instead, open up that dirty window and let the sun illuminate your path.  Create a new way of looking at things, and let a positive perspective be the lens through which you look at your pages going forward.  As Dr. Wayne Dyer says, when you “change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

‘Feel the rain on your skin.’  You might even think of the ‘rain’ as being your tears, which I like to think of as cleansing agents. You have to let yourself feel your feelings and let them out in order to move through them. Keep them bottled up inside, and they’ll only end up spilling out at inopportune times, or putrefying inside into depression or disease.

Many of us were taught not to feel our feelings, the subconscious (or even overt) message being that ‘negative’ feelings like anger or sadness were ‘unattractive’, ‘weak’ or ‘needy’. But our feelings are valuable clues about where our lives are and aren’t in alignment with our needs and our desires…so honour them for the guideposts that they are. They are just feelings, and it’s ok to have them and to let them out.

Only once you allow yourself to identify, honour and process your feelings can you determine how to deal with them in a healthy way, and how to transform them into more positive ones. Once you’ve had a chance to calm down from them and integrate them, you can then make healthy, rational and mature decisions about the choices you have.  You can determine what your options are for preventing the unpleasant feelings in the future, and for bringing in and creating more of the pleasant ones. You can’t change anyone else around you, but you can choose your decisions and your actions in every circumstance. Choose the ones that line up with the person you want to be, and with the life that you want to create for yourself.

When the life you dream of feels ‘so close you can almost taste it’, it’s likely because you’re at the fork in the road where you’ll need to make certain choices in order to get there. Sometimes those choices can be difficult or scary – maybe even terrifying – but no one else can speak the words on your lips.  Only you can make the choices for yourself that will take you down the right path.

So open up your dirty window; let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find; feel the rain on your skin – because no one else can feel it for you – and get on out there. Life your life with arms wide open. Today is where your book begins.

The rest is still unwritten.

And the pen is in your hand.

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Recipe for Success: secret ingredients & sage advice for changing careers without cooking your goose

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Join the Recipe for Success program, starting August 9th, and get the four essential ingredients & the step-by-step formula for cooking up the life of your dreams with a sense of confidence, purpose & alignment. 

 

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Don’t miss next’s week’s issue of the Summer Music Series, when I’ll share resonant advice from a cowboy.  Sign up here and get it delivered straight to your inbox.

This Is Your Life

Summer Music Series: photo courtesy of Gianni via morguefile.comThis post is the sixth in my ten-week, 2013 ‘Summer Music Series‘: a collection of articles inspired by some of the songs and music lyrics that inspire me and make me think… Sign up here to make sure you don’t miss any instalments: not only is the series free, but when you sign up you’ll also get a complimentary copy of my Dreamsmith Guide to Creating a Life You Love.  

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So.  This is your life.  Think for a moment about the circumstances you’re in, the people that you have day-to-day contact with, the relationships that you nourish and the roles that you play.

Child, sibling, parent, partner, employee/executive/entrepreneur, volunteer, friend, neighbour…

In the life you’re currently living, are you who you want to be?

The lyrics for the song that inspired this post, written and performed by Californian alternative rock band, Switchfoot, contain a surprisingly small number of lines but they do include this one simple and thought-provoking question:

This is your life…are you who you want to be?

My hope for you is that you are.  My hope for you is that you’re happy with your current set of circumstances; that you feel blessed by the people with whom you have day-to-day contact; that you’re engaged in relationships that feel mutually nourishing and fulfilling, and that you’re deeply content with the roles you play at home, at work, and out there at large in the beautiful big wide world that we live in. 

If you’re not all of those things…my encouragement for you is that you can be.

Indeed, you can.

It begins with gratitude.  Rather than looking at and focusing on all the things that you’re not, or on all the things that you don’t have or that are missing from your life, focus today on all the blessings that you do have, right now.  Perhaps that’s something as simple as a pillow on which to lay your head at night.  A roof over your head.  A healthy child.  A loyal pet.  One good friend.  Running water.   A hot cup of tea.  

Focus on all the good things that you are, and all the good things – large or small – that you have done.  Focus on the good intentions within your heart.

Who you are today is the result of who you were when you were born, combined with the influence of all the experiences and relationships that have come your way thus far…and as shaped by the decisions you made (or didn’t make), and actions you took (or didn’t take) in response to each and every one of those experiences and relationships.  

Who you are tomorrow will be the result of all the experiences you choose to engage in and all the relationships you choose to nourish from here on in.  Who you are tomorrow will be the result of all the decisions that you make (or don’t make), and the actions that you take (or don’t take) today.

Today is all you’ve got now.  And today is all you’ll ever have.

start anew every day - photo courtesy of 123rf.com

Every single day, you get to reinvent yourself.

Each morning, you open our eyes to a brand-new opportunity in how you choose to approach your life, how you show up in your world, in the decisions you make and in how you treat the people around you.

 

Each morning, you open our eyes to a new possibility for how you treat yourself.

You get to decide on which form of inner dialogue you choose to engage in with yourself: one of love, kindness and encouragement, or one of dejection, disappointment and hopelessness.

You get to decide if you will listen to the call of your soul, whispering to you about what you need in order to thrive; about what you need to give…and what you need to be willing to receive.

You get to decide if you will say and do and choose things that will nourish, fuel and sustain you, or whether you will say and do and choose things that will drain, empty and deplete you.

Whether you will stay in relationships or jobs or living conditions that do the same.

You get to choose.

Stay conscious of the kind of person you want to be, and then in each moment, make the right choices: the ones that ‘the you that you want to be’ would make.

Because this is your life.

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Recipe for Success: secret ingredients & sage advice for changing careers without cooking your goose

 

If you could use some support and guidance in becoming who you want to be – especially as far as your vocation is concerned – check out my new, step-by-step Recipe for Success program – it starts August 9th.

 

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Next’s week’s issue of the Summer Music Series offers up some inspiration and tips for what to do if you feel like you’ve got writer’s block when it comes to the blank page of your future.  Don’t miss it: sign up here and have it delivered straight to your inbox.