What you need to ask yourself is can you see that there is a message staring you right in the face waiting to be answered? Can you let yourself be open enough to notice it when it comes up or are you “brushing it under the carpet?” We are very good at “brushing it under the carpet,” and when the carpet gets too bumpy from having so much shoved under it you are going to fall off those bumps and that’s when “the carpet has been pulled from under your feet.”  We know these sayings and these quotes because they are said many times by people around us who have experienced it or have seen it with someone else.  These sayings weren’t made up out of no where. . . It has happened to almost everyone in this world at least once and if not once than a thousand times.  


How many times are we willing to let it happen to ourselves or someone we know and love before we all start listening?

After living literally “inside” my head and mind for a year my head exploded with shingles! I had no choice but to listen to what I thought the message was.  I was in it whether I wanted to be or not, I could not move from my “sick bed” for a month.  I wish I had more energy to have been able to meditate through that experience but I could barely get myself to the bathroom without falling down.  There was so much internal thinking going on in my left brain which is often said to be more logical, analytical and objective, while the right brain is said to be more intuitive, thoughtful and subjective, that the my body could not take it anymore and that stress caused me to get very, very sick. I have always been “right brained”, but at this point in my life I was ignoring those “right brained” tendencies because I was so scared of the messages they were bringing me.  CHANGE!! that was the message.  I was not comfortable with this message because I was trying to live out the story that seemed so picture perfect.  

Have you ever noticed that the “stories” we create are never actually Our True and Full story? They are the story we have created by listening to other people’s stories, parent’s stories, other adults in our lives who have all lived and created a similar story and we feel like that was successful for them so if we take those same steps to create a similar story we will be successful as well.  Finish High School and go to College/University.  Get the diploma and then get a job as close to your major or what your major was and get that job with benefits.  Get that job with a retirement plan.  Find a partner.  When that partner is your serious partner get engaged.  Get married.  Get that house you’ve always wanted.  Have those babies.  Do these steps sound familiar? 

Know this: these steps are not wrong at all, but have you ever thought about changing them up? Perhaps you had the babies first.  Perhaps you had such an amazing job you didn’t want to leave and you didn’t go to College/University.  What we need to remember is that just because someone else’s steps or process worked for them doesn’t mean they will work for us.  We have to find our own steps.  And those steps will change, you have to be prepared in life to know that things change, and when I think of change I remember this quote that one of my lovely and beautiful lady’s wears on her t shirt to my dance class on a regular basis: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” Charles Darwin 

My message that I have heard loud and clear was this: I have a voice, you have a voice, we all have a voice and we should be heard.  THis is what I heard. . . . Choice, Chance, and change. . . You have the choice to take a chance to make a change.  Best few words I have heard and I recognize this more and more every day after being in Africa.  Some people can’t find the choice because they are not given the same opportunity to challenge the ideas from the outside world.  But I was fortunate enough to meet some beautiful and amazing women who took the chance to take the leap of faith that someone would be there to listen to their voice and accept them as they are: beautiful, powerful and strong in a place that they have to push past the odds of survival.  Women. . . Educating. . . Empowering. . . This is what I know and this is what I learned while being in Kenya.  After watching this most amazing speech I understand I am doing the right thing at the right time in my life because I listened to the messages.  

http://elitedaily.com/women/angelina-jolies-governors-awards-speech-will-make-cry/