You are stronger than you know

Are you hurting? 

Well you are not alone!

Does it hurt really bad? 

Cry! But then get back up once you are done crying and get back in the game (whatever it is).
Don't waste your pain but reward yourself for the hurt by getting to the next level.
Every time I am hurt I make it a point to shift myself to a higher level than I was before the pain happened. I no longer play a pity party every time I experience pain but take it as an opportunity to grow. 

What you are made up of is not judged by how well you celebrate the good times but by how well you handle your bad days. 

No matter how painful the pain, how great the set back, how bad the failure  or how great the loss, feel the pain but don't give up. 

 Don't judge your future based on what's going on in your life right now. Whatever you are going through has not come to stay but to test you and pass by. Have an attitude that says no matter how tough it gets or how much it hurts I am going to pass the test.  Don't let the cloudy days and the storms intimidate you.

The storm in your life right now is trying to teach you something very important but  you are so busy being mad and feeling sorry for yourself that you are about to miss out the hidden blessings.

What if you let few people walk away and you wave them good bye when they leave instead of hanging onto the memory of who you wanted someone to be?
Trust me it will all be worth it. You are going to look back on things you are crying about and be grateful that you went through it all.

You are so much stronger than you know but how are you going to figure that out unless you are tested by the challenges.
Trust me when this storm in your life is over and if you do not give up, you are going to find yourself in next level (much higher).
The very reason many of us get stuck at one point in life is because of our feelings and emotions that is filled with bitterness toward the world. When we are bitter it mostly hinders our growth.

The pain that used to bug me yesterday doesn't affect me anymore because I made it a point to learn my lessons instead of whining over the pain.
I have learned that it is always darkest  before the dawn so when you think you can no more tolerate the pain just hang in there a little longer because you never know how close you are to the light.

Don't stop fighting as long as you  have life to live. You got to have a vision that pulls you because the pull is what helps you go long way.
All the people I know who are(were) great and are doing (did) great things, the ones I have seen, read about and heard of are (were) the ones who despite the pain walked that extra mile when the others gave up.

When it hurts keep going because the very fact that it's hurting is because you are going to the next level. There is always another level so you got push yourself and raise the bar. Whenever you are tempted to give up remember that in that very moment you are writing your legacy. The key is believing in yourself when no one believes in you and your abilities.

Get out of the comfort zone and be tough. Use your pain as the fuel to drive you to your success and to better version of you.

Keep up the good fight!
 Live beautiful!

The lesson my wounded fingers taught me

Last Wednesday was a holiday for me and I was home. I wanted to make myself a glass of lemonade so I went to the kitchen and as I was trying to cut the lemon in two halves  I cut my index finger and middle finger instead. The cut was pretty deep, my fingers started bleeding real bad and the pain was quite severe. I was mad at myself for not being able to cut just a lemon without hurting myself. As I ran to get some antiseptic and band-aid I was cursing myself for being so clumsy.

Suddenly I realized that I was being so harsh on myself, it was as if my wounded fingers were trying to tell me that instead of getting mad I should be taking care of my fingers at this moment.  I immediately stopped for a moment and pondered upon it. I then apologized my fingers for hurting and as soon as I did that the pain somehow started subsiding. 

 In that moment I became mindful of the way I was treating myself for every mistake. As I was thinking about it, I went into the flash back, to all those times when I failed, got my heart broken,  made wrong choices , etc. I am very good at forgiving others but when it comes forgiving myself I I have not been able to do the same.

 I had to understand that every mistake I made along the way was based on the best of my knowledge and circumstances at that point and time. My intention was always right but I lacked the knowledge. I have talked about this is in one of my previous posts titled 'I didn't know any better'.

We all grow with time so we got to learn to be patient and gentle with ourselves. Being patient and gentle doesn't mean you just sit and suffer, but it means that you carry your hurt with grace without waiting to be pulled out of it. If you are just sitting with pain and waiting to be pulled out, then there is a danger that you may end up playing the blame game. I have learned to take complete responsibility for my life. Whatever I went through in my life I have no one to blame, not even myself, but I believe I needed every challenges, failures, heartbreaks and difficulties to be the person I am today.
I believe so strongly that,  'whatever happens in life doesn't happen to us but happens for us'.

I also believe that each one of us is better and stronger than we think.

Life has thrown many tests in each of our lives in the form of challenges, hurt, betrayal, discouragement or disappointments but the very fact that we are still breathing and living our lives in itself is a proof that we are not defeated. We are the victors and not the victims.We got to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and start being proud instead.
We all have made many mistakes along the the way but life changes every single second so we can start over with a new beginning any time.  It's all about shifting focus and understanding that we are exactly where we need to be in our life right now.

Life is a beautiful journey but it's not always easy. We go through difficult situations in life so that we grow and understand ourselves better. When we understand ourselves better we find the strength to grow up into a more stronger, confident and better humans.

Our capacity to love others and ourselves is defined by how much we have healed our past hurts, forgiven others and ourselves, and let our hearts expand to hold love. If we accumulate all of our past hurts, our capacity to love shrinks.

So the lesson my wounded fingers taught me was that I got to love, forgive and accept myself not only others because living a beautiful life without being able to do so is impossible. I hope we all learn to love, forgive and accept ourselves wherever we are in life.

Live beautiful!!!

Keep the dream alive

I like the the fact that faith is believing in what you don't see and it sounds so very true. Many people  changed the world because they saw the world differently, way before any one could.  There are many great people who inspire me to keep my dream alive, one of them is Martin Luther King Jr.  

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Civil Rights Leader who was best known for his non-violent ways and fought for equality. Though slavery was made illegal in the United States but life was very difficult  for the black Americans in those days.

 In Martin Luther King Jr.'s most memorable speech, 'I have a dream', he expresses his dream where people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character and that was back in the days when it seemed almost impossible that his dream would come true. He saw and believed way before anyone could see what he was dreaming of. Today it is nothing unusual, he saw years into the future. He didn't even live to see his dream come true but no one can take away his contribution to the world. We know how great a man he was and though it's been almost 50 years since he has left the earth but he has not been forgotten by the world. 

For sure it didn't always go well with him but he never gave up on his dream.
He ended up in prison, 

some people didn't like him , he was jailed over 20 times, he was stabbed , his house was bombed, he was threatened very often and most of his days were hard but he never gave up fighting for equality. 

Yes he was shot but he died a hero and lived a life worth remembering for generations to come. His accomplishments are known world wide today. A bullet couldn't stop his message or his dream to come true. 

His 'mountaintop speech' which was his last speech was filled with words of a true hero and it goes like this,

"Well I don't know what will happen now. But I am not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. He's allowed me to go to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land! 

And I am so happy, tonight.

I am not worried about anything

I am not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord!!!"

You and I may not have a dream as big as Martin Luther King Jr.'s  but whatever our dreams may be we got to keep them alive. We may not be able to see our dreams come true any time soon but that doesn't mean we give up.
If only we can say "I have seen the promised Land" when we come to the end of our lives, I believe we can leave the earth in peace knowing we did our part and did not waste our life in vain. 

So what's your dream?
Whatever it may be, irrespective of how big or small I hope you keep it alive and not let it die specially when you are most tempted to give up. Remember that everybody who has ever been great had an option to give up several times and faced many obstacles along the way. It is not easy to keep going when the going gets tough so we got to have enough faith to see into the future.

Although it maybe painful and tiring, you may feel like quitting because you don't see any progress but  keep pushing forward believing that you are going to see your dream come true somewhere down the line. If you give up and let your dream die you are not going see the beauty of your dream come true. You got to be able to see something you are not before you can be it. Wherever you are in your life is temporary, you are not going stay there forever.

You got to do what you were born to do because it's who you are. You are going to get knocked down every now and then but don't you dare give up, get back up, continue to keep up the good fight and keep your dream alive. It will all be worth at the end.

Keep your dream alive!!

Are you using your time to learn?

Steve Jobs was terminally ill and he was going to die when he spoke at Stanford University to the graduating students. He said to the students "Your time is limited so don't waste it living someone else's life". 

How are you living your life today? Are you making good use of your time? 

I wish I would have known what I am writing today when I was much younger but never the less I am grateful I know it now. 

I wish I would have utilized my time more productively. I see people disappearing from the phase of earth just like that. We recently lost a great man Muhammad Ali and like all the people who leave, we all will have to leave some day or the other. Life is too short and so we don't have eternity on earth to take all the time we want to learn. 

Just imagine how would your life be if you could learn things much faster than an average person. An average person has to make the same mistake at least 10 times to learn the lesson from the mistake, what if you could learn your lesson the first time? An average person takes years to quit smoking, what if you you could quit right away? The average person struggles with their weight their whole life, what if you could learn to lose weight right away?

I know it is going to bring amazing results and there are ways to learn to do everything. All we got to do is try and find the answer for every how. We might die without knowing the answers to the
 simple 'hows' and the worst thing would be if we never bothered to find the answers. 

To quote from the Bible, Hosea 4:6 says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge". Many of us make wrong choices and decisions because we do not know any better.  We do what we know is the best but what if what we know is not the best? 

For most of the history people thought that the world was flat, smart people like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle lived their whole life not knowing that the earth is round, but you and I discovered the that fact by time we were 6 or 7 years of age or maybe even younger. 

We are living at the right time and everything that we need is within our reach, it's just the matter of learning to get them. You may ultimately learn the little secrets of life and you are definitely going to live a better life once you start learning the secrets. I don't know about you but I don't want to be 70 years of age and then be wise, smart or happy, I want to be all these while I am still young because what if I don't get to live that long. 

The person who is able to learn quickly is always ahead.

So how do we learn then? To be a learner we got to be humble because without true humility it is impossible to get to the truth. I like to take every opportunity to learn. Learn from everyone and every moment. Don't let go of anything or any person without getting a lesson from them. 

What are you doing to learn?
Do you know that there are answers for most of your questions?
Are you listening to the wise and the experts who have figured out the answers to your questions?

I definitely don't want to waste my time trying to figure out if the earth is really round but I am going to trust the experts on that. 

Issac Newton once said , "If I have seen further it is only by standing on the shoulders of giants." So are you standing on the shoulders of giants? If not You better start. We are living in a generation when it is not so difficult to find mentors and learn from the experts. I am taking full advantage of the modern facilities, reading from the best sources, listening to the best, looking up to people who are way ahead of me. 

I try not to worry about making mistakes because I learn from the mistakes, but  I don't have time to make all the mistakes and then learn, so I would rather learn from the mistakes of others. So I take every opportunity to learn from peoples' mistakes not just mine. 

From what I have learned, we can get out of a relationship not worth staying right away, we can let go of toxic people right away and we can stop making unhealthy choices right away. Our lives are the cumulative effect of every decision we make and so we got to learn to make good decisions. The good decisions can only be made if we have good knowledge and so we got to take every opportunity to gain good knowledge/information.

Shun the arrogance and learn,  you are going to end up happier and more satisfied. Be humble and be smart at the right time. What are you waiting for? Start learning whatever it is you are trying to learn. Remember your time is limited so you can not afford to waste it.

"The beautiful thing about learning is no body can take it away from you." ~B.B King

Begin now !!!
Live Beautiful!!!

Perfect fit at the right season

 On this journey of life I have learned many great lessons and one lesson I am really grateful for in particular is learning to let go. I have learned that every time I am stepping into a new season I have to let go of certain things and some people from my life. I am grateful for each and every person and situation that crossed my way but I am also grateful that they left at the right time making space for the new ones. There was a time when it used to bother me every time I had to let go of people who I really loved but now I have come to understand that it's not a bad thing after all. I am especially grateful for those who walked with me some distance and then made an exit at the RIGHT time. 

Recently I was rearranging my clothes from my wardrobe. I had so many clothes many of which I don't wear anymore because they don't fit my current style. My wardrobe was pretty messy and it didn't look good at all. So I finally decided to rearrange and I found so many clothes that I wouldn't wear anymore. There was time when those clothes were perfect for me but I have grown and my taste in clothes have changed with time. I was however keeping them lying there in the wardrobe hoping that I might wear them someday. I didn't even realize that I had no space for the clothes that fit my current taste because the space was all occupied by clothes that doesn't fit my taste any more.  So I had to dispose of more than 60% of my wardrobe  and now it is much easier for me to find a comfortable wear.  

Like me most of us have this tendency of keeping things and people even when their part in our life is over. It's very important to clear up the mess in our life every now and then, be it people or stuffs. The people who walked with you yesterday may not be able to walk with you today and if you do not let go then just like my wardrobe someday suddenly you will realize that all the people you have been trying to drag along are nothing but mess. They are going to occupy all the space that there will be no space for those who fit in your life in this new season. 

Just like I can't be mad at clothes that doesn't fit me anymore, I can't be mad at people who doesn't fit into my life in this new season. I have to understand that there was a time when they did fit in perfectly and be grateful to them for that but in this new season it's wise to let go.  I have had many people (people I really loved) who left me and some I had to leave. To be honest it was never easy, it did hurt but when I look back today I am grateful that some left on their own and some I had the strength to leave. Today I have no complaints against those who left me and also no regrets that I was the one to leave some. I am grateful for each and every person who came into my life, taught me some important lessons and then left at the right time.  

Steve Jobs was so right in saying, "You can't connect the dots looking forward you can only connect them looking backwards."

Just because people leave doesn't mean they are bad people, it just means their part in your story is over and so you got to move on to the next part without them.  If someone was meant for you they would have been with you and if they are not then you got to understand they are not meant for you in this new season.   Let go and wait for the next best thing that is about happen in your life.

 Live beautiful!!!!!