Courage, Confidence and Connections

  FRAGRANCE OF SPRING     Ahhh, springtime! It's such an awakening time of year isn't it? Somehow it's refreshing and delightful. I don't know where you live, but I come from North Carolina and it's my favorite time of the year without question.   In the spring there, the flowers come out in abundance and you see a parade of colors and the fragrance of the blossoms can transport you to another place,     I've  experienced that overwhelming of the colors of the tulips showing off in yellows, reds, oranges, purples. I love the dogwoods as they show off in white and pink blooms welcoming in the new season. I miss that living out in Oregon. One of my favorites is the hydrangea bush which presents itself in many colors as you can see in the photo because it adapts to the acid in the soil. We too, often times need to adapt.     Maybe you are asking why I am writing about flowers and trees. I want to help you open your eyes to new beg...

  THAT WIND BLOWN LOOK     Before you ask, yes, that’s Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz. By now you are figuring out that I love movies and in particular the encouraging ones and those that touch the soul and encourage the heart. This scene has a meaning. She is in the tornado and running to take cover. What speaks to me here is the wind. She has definitely got the wind blown look.      The other day we had some very strong winds here, at least 40 mph and maybe stronger gusts. It was a sunny day and warm enough to open some of the windows in my home. I have a recliner near one of the windows overlooking my back yard and garden. I could see the trees blowing almost horizontally. My sweet boy kitty, Tobe was on my lap asleep while I was enjoying a movie.      All of a sudden, a gust of wind blew through my house and literally blew the screen out of the window beside me. I did manage to get up and keep Tobe from going that way and getting cu...

A   RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT      I just finished enjoying a nice Sunday afternoon watching the movie, “A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT”. I’ve always liked this movie as it stirs the soul and touches the heart. I also love rivers and the sound they make as the waters rush across and around the rocks and boulders to come back together again.     I could literally listen to a river for hours on end. I’m not fond of fishing so why does this movie speak to me you might ask. Good question! In life as in a river, there are many rocks and boulders that can impede our journey in life. I remember one time as a young person, I’m not sure what age I was but I do recall being with my family on some outing or adventure. We were crossing what looked to me at that age like a river, but maybe it was just a stream. In any case, the whole thing was uncomfortable to me and I slipped up on a rock. I was fine of course but not crazy about crossing rivers and climbing on slippery rocks to ...

  LAUGHTER     Laughing! It's so healthy for us. What makes you laugh so hard you start to cry? Yes that is me a few years back and I'm not sure what was so funny but looking at the picture makes me laugh.      A couple of times today and yesterday, a friend sent me a text while talking into their phone.  I literally almost hurt myself laughing so hard I cried. Of course I got the "corrected" version shortly after that and laughed even harder.      Do yourself a favor and laugh, laugh, laugh! I watched a video not long ago of a guy that got on the subway and simply started laughing for no apparent reason except to change the atmosphere in the subway car. Everyone else was looking glum and sad. Before long, the whole crowd was laughing hysterically, again, for no apparent reason. Try it, you may set off a positive chain reaction.     Find a funny movie, maybe an old one to just sit and laugh out loud. It will...

  FIELD TRIP     Do you remember taking those trips? I went on a few myself growing up. One in particular stands out to me in my distant (won’t say how distant) memory. I was in the 4th grade as I recall and we lived in a small town in the northern part of North Carolina, Henderson. My dad was a Methodist minister and pastored 2 churches in the area and we lived on the outskirts of town about 5 or 6 miles on a country road. My school was a few miles away.     For some reason, I missed the bus to go to school which led to me missing the bus for the field trip as well. So, off we went, me and my dad. I have 3 siblings and one was in school a year ahead but he must have caught the bus that I missed. The field trip was to a Jewish Temple for a tour. It’s as if it was yesterday in my mind.     If my dad gave me one thing, it was courage or at least he thought I was courageous that day. It took about 15 minutes to get to town and through town to the Temple. ...

  A PATHWAY     While contemplating what to write today, my day changed courses. We always try to stay on course, or on the planned path for our day. In my case, it all changed. I would say it got derailed, but it feels like somehow, I stayed on a good track.     As a professional personal development coach, I work with clients to plan and time block and yet it seems our days can easily get off our path of choice. So this happened today. My printer died. It's still fairly new and covered for repair. A funny story here is after I called and set up for it to get fixed yesterday, today I get 2 emails. The first one was notifying me it was approved for repair. The second email, ha ha, said to print out the shipping label. I couldn't stop laughing! Print it out? Were they serious? I was trying to get my "printer" fixed.     With that, off to the shipping store after several calls to the place I bought it and inquiries on how to print out a la...

 LOVE THE JOURNEY      Are you enjoying your journey? Have you hit some potholes? We all do no matter where we are on our journey, we will likely hit a pothole or two. Do you keep going?    Ironically, I don't like bicycles and never learned to ride one and you can stop staring at me now Ha Ha Ha!. But seriously, my parents bought me a bicycle when I was around 8-9 years old. I really tried to ride it and like it yet, no go on my part. I could never find the balance to stay up and learn. I think one of my siblings took over. Then as an adult, I tried again, maybe more than once to no avail, nope, not me, not now, not ever. I simply do not like riding a bicycle. I even sold my recumbent bike recently and finally, lesson learned.     I haven't always enjoyed the journey either in life. I've hit many potholes over the years, taken wrong turns and at times I only wanted to lay down by the proverbial roadside or the ditch where no one could see me...

WHAT IF?     As children, most of us grew up imagining and playing games of pretending to be a pilot, a school teacher, a nurse and many other occupations. Some grew up “being” mommy’s and playing with doll babies.  I did some of that too.      I recall playing Barbies quite often and had some really cute handmade clothes for both Barbie and Ken. Barbie had more of course. One memory I have of when I was about 5 or 6 was being a majorette in a band. The teenage daughter of a family friend was just that and I wanted to be just like her and twirl the baton. She taught me a few moves and if I had a baton I believe I could still do them. Although catching it after tossing it up in the air was too scary for me!      Ahh, I digress, but not really. As adults, why do we stop dreaming and letting ourselves imagine? It’s often ridiculed and educated out of us. If you can’t see it, it’s not real. Well, guess again. Everything that has ever been invente...

CONNECTIONS     Today I'd like to chat about connections. After all, my blog is called Courage, Confidence and Connections! We are all connected; it's proven by science.     I find it so fascinating that we can have an effect on the world around us, people and things with our thoughts. We all know our words have an impact and lately in our world, it's been a very negative one, I think you would agree.     In the TV series, "Touch" with Keifer Sutherland, he has a son who is autistic and communicates with numbers. I was sad when it got discontinued after 3 seasons, but I digress. It was so good at showing how one person could affect another person a world away .      We do have an impact! Our very thoughts affect our own bodies and the environment around us; and again, this is proven by science. We are quite powerful beings, us humans. I've seen how my thoughts have changed me and my world both positive and negative....

TALK TO ME!     I've been away a couple of days from writing and I'm back. I love to write and I'm taking a writing course now. It's very insightful to open up areas of communication that I've previously not fully embraced.       Tobe, my wonderful tabby cat is a prolific talker and as I was sitting at my desk pondering what to write, he was pacing around my chair and office as if to say, I'm here, talk to me. Then in my creative mind, that's my blog topic for today.      Talking and communicating can be two different things as you probably know. There are many out there who talk a lot and say nothing or very little. I've been listening to a book the last 2 days entitled, "The Honeymoon Effect" by Bruce Lipton, Phd. Just to put to rest any concern that that is in my future any time soon, it's about how euphoric it is for newlyweds in their just married bliss (in most cases).      My point on that topic is how qui...

RUNAWAY BRIDE     First of all, this isn't about a runnaway bride literally, but about running away from challenges in our lives. Over the last year or so, the challenges have been overwhelming to many of us. I am in that group in what feels several times over.      We run away from many things in our lives instead of going face to face with them. Sometimes life just kicks us from the behind and there’s no choice but to face that challenge or issue. What we do have a choice in, is how we respond and how we think about and perceive what is happening. It is easy to lay down and play the victim in some cases whatever the reason. Personally, I’ve played the victim and I’ve been the victim. I’ve been in a place of overwhelming odds against me feeling NO WAY OUT!      Other times, I hardly notice the challenge at hand. The majority of the time, however, I’ve had the opportunity to change my perspective, to see it from a different view point. I love kale...

    COURAGE AND PRETENDING     As I mentioned in my previous blog, I grew up in the south, North Carolina, to be exact. Not to give away my age, but to give you some perspective, it was a time that things were very different for little girls and women in general. I loved playing dress up in my Mom's things and more so when we would go visit our Aunt Hettie, dress up was a blast.      She had this huge closet in an older house built in the 1800's and it seemed to be mysterious to a little girl like myself. She had what seemed like a million evening gowns to me and she would let me play dress up. This closet was attached to her bedroom upstairs and had many secrets from my young perspective.  Fondest of memories to this day,       Why do I tell you this story in a blog about courage? Because I can and it reminds me of being brave enough to explore the unknown and pretend. I grew up pretending a lot and there is more to ...

      COURAGE, CONFIDENCE & CONNECTIONS       With this being my first blog on my site here, I want to tell you a little about the name of my blog site.         Over the years having grown up as a preachers kid in the south, moving was the norm for us. There was little  opportunity to develop permanent friendships that would carry through to adulthood with rare exception. Moves were every 1 to 4 years and multiple schools had us always starting over and being the "new kid".        I never grew accustomed to moving or adapting to finding friends even though I always made friends easily. It became easy to pretend. I don't recall feeling lonely but I do recall not wanting to be in the spotlight. So many consider me an extrovert, when in reality, I love my alone time and pulling away from the crowd to regroup.        Making connections comes easy for me as many who know me woul...