“Very few situations are 100 percent negative.”  ~Joyce Meyer

In my efforts to renew my mind, I’ve faced many battles.  Just yesterday I had a “monkey on my back” regarding being a failure.

It all began when I made a mountain out of a molehill.

I had things going well all around me.  Most of all, my attitude had been full of thankfulness, my family & friends full of joy as I spent good times with them.  Business was picking up nicely.  I was full of life and joy.

Then I let it happen.  I let the positive become negative.  Slowly but surely.

Really it was a small adjustment I needed to make in my attitude; yet I was blocked in my ability to think clearly and logically.  All I could think about was how even when I succeeded in accomplishing anything significant I’d end up getting sick and unbalanced all over again.

What I was doing was, I was focusing on a small thing that I had done wrong in the past.  A molehill.

Which reminded me of the failures and setbacks I had experienced before.  The guilt I had experienced as a mom and businesswoman.

Now it’s a full-on mountain.

It was not a place I wanted to bring myself back to and yet here I was.

You would think that with all the stuff I’ve been training on renewing the mind and positive thinking, that I’d be a stellar example of it.

Wanna know what my real battle was?  Letting go of perfection.

I made progress, can I be cool with that?

The answer is YES – I’m cool with progress

How about you, are you cool with the progress you’ve made in any one thing today?

“Where the mind goes, the man follows.”  ~Joyce Meyer

Have you ever gotten yourself into a hole with your thoughts?  Meaning, your mind taking you where it’s not good for you?

On June 22, I picked up a book at Target with a birthday gift card.  The book has been one I wanted to read since I first saw it, called Power Thoughts by Joyce Meyer.

One of her favorite sayings is, “Where the mind goes, the man follows.”

Or in my case, the woman.

Your thoughts are powerful.  They can lead you to places of confidence, productivity and success – or they can lead you to fear, worry and negativity.

I refuse to stay in negativity.  This may be one of the biggest battles of my life but it is one I intend to win, especially with God on my side.

It’s All in Your Mind

Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life.  If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted.  If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten.  If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.  ~Anonymous

I recall hearing you can always hit the reset button, and it’s as simple as choosing what you would like for dinner – steak or chicken?

I’m choosing true love, joy and intimacy in relationships.  What about you, is there something you would like to reset your mind on?

No doubt we are all different and our journeys and gifts reflect that.

I’m so grateful for the different people I’ve gotten to know during my journey in blogging and business.  I absolutely love connecting with you all whether in person or online.  And I learn a lot from each of you.

Now I want to share something I haven’t shared before.

If you’ve been journeying with me for some time now, you may remember me saying things like, “I love music & art but I don’t get to do it very often.”

Well today I’m going to give you a deeper look into why.  To be honest, this is kinda hard for me to share because it’s been a frustrating part of my journey.  If this can help someone through a similar frustration, I’ll consider it worth the baring of my soul.

I have loved music & art since I was a little girl.  That’s who I was.  You can say those are my God-given gifts, because not only did I enjoy them immensely – the inside of my soul danced for joy whenever I engaged in singing, painting, etc.

Like most Asian families of my generation, becoming an artist was just not something you did.  You risked dishonoring the family and it was just not something I could bear to do.  So, I went to college for a degree that was the closest to anything artsy I could find – and that was architectural engineering.

Only thing was, it wasn’t close to being artsy.  And I disliked it with a passion.  I did go on to graduate with a B.S. in it but I felt imprisoned when I went to work in it.

Now fast-forward many years and I’m a mom.  Am I embracing who I am?  You can say I do my best to, but something was missing.  I had buried the music & art part of me deep inside, to the point I didn’t know if I enjoyed it anymore sometimes.

My friends, I’m writing this because I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did.  Don’t let something you love to do sit buried deep down inside of you, that the layers of life sit on top of, and you don’t even know if you enjoy doing it anymore.

What do you love to do?  What would you do if time or money were not an issue?

Friends, it wasn’t just that I didn’t have enough time to do what I’m passionate about.  I had deep-seated fears regarding it – fears that I didn’t even know about.

So what if I didn’t think I was good enough as a singer?  As a guitarist?  As a painter?  At the heart of the fear of not engaging in these precious mediums of human expression, is thinking, “I’m not good enough to make enough income off of my art or music.”  That’s really what it is and I’m tired of letting this get in the way of me doing what I really love.

As you can see, the passion within me is rising up.  I encourage you, if you feel a lack of vision or desire in your life, to explore your God-given gifts.  He gave them to you for a reason.

He gave me mine for a reason.  And when I wasn’t using them fully, I was a wandering person not fully in touch with my vision in life.

Oh, I can talk about vision intellectually.  But in my heart, I was struggling to engage in that vision.  That’s because in order to do something from my heart, I must engage my emotion.  God made me to have strong emotion swirling inside of me for a reason – so I can express it through song or on paper.

But when I did not embrace my emotional side, it was very hard for me to express it just the way I am.

As this post is getting long, I will share more on Wednesday how being in business and learning about my personality is helping me embrace who I am.

To be continued…

What about you?  What are your God-given gifts that you embrace, or working to embrace?  What gets in the way of you embracing them?

This idea of embrace…

…has been on my mind more than ever before.

Especially when it comes to embracing who we are.

I’m excited and trembling as I write this, because I believe we’re on to something that can profoundly change the way we live and work.

Below the surface of what we as people express to one another, there’s a desire to love and be loved.  To embrace and be embraced…

…Just the way we are.

Embrace is defined as:  receiving gladly, accepting willingly, taking in with the eye or the mind.  (Thanks, Dictionary.com)

When it comes to embracing ourselves, there are so many areas of our lives to discover, explore and accept.

We may realize we’re not perfect (surprise!), but in reality when something bad happens we can easily think we could have done better, we could have said this, not said that, etc.

We may accept certain parts of ourselves.  But other parts of our lives pop up and we discover, hey – we have something else we have not accepted.

To enjoy life and do what we love, I believe we must embrace every part of who we are – knowing we will find *surprises* that we may not like about ourselves.

For a long time, I had a hard time embracing a certain aspect of myself.  In fact, I didn’t even know I struggled with it until something happened and it surfaced in my relationships.

It literally surfaced as something I needed to pay attention to and think differently about – because it would negatively color everything I said or did…

And affect everybody I came in contact with.

What I hope to do in the coming weeks is unravel some of those areas of our lives regarding who we are.

I’m looking forward to sharing with you more of my discoveries!

What about you?  Have you ever struggled with embracing certain aspects of yourself?

Our family was driving around town this weekend when we noticed these incredible dogwood blossoms.

They literally sprang up overnight.

Because just the day before, the branches were bare.

Hubby said dogwood blossoms quickly; they also last a short time.  I remarked that has its place in the world…

For when they blossom, they exude a breathtaking beauty.

Sometimes it’s like us humans as we grow in life.

Seasons come and go, weather and winds change.

There are times we may appear like bare branches while other kinds of flowers and plants bloom…

But you never know when we will blossom overnight.

The solid root, the majestic stretch toward heaven, the beauty that awaits your eye…

These amazing photos are all taken by my hubby.  He went out to take them at my request, as I have experienced a sort of blossoming in my own life this past weekend.  A blossoming in teamwork, trust and building value.

What are some things you have waited a long time to see blossom in your life?

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.  ~Leo Buscaglia

Have you noticed how many people say, “Excuse me” or “Thank you”?  Or don’t?

Over the weekend, our family went on errands.  We were at Bed, Bath and Beyond looking at shower curtain liners in an aisle.  My husband and son were both in the aisle.  A lady and her shopping cart came and stopped there, blocked by my hubby and son.

This lady started to go around them to a different aisle – then decided to stay where she was.  Fortunately my husband was sharp and saw that the lady wanted him and my son to move so she could go through that aisle.  My hubby told our son to move which he did.  This lady then pushed her cart through without saying a word.

Our question is, if she wanted them to move, why didn’t she just say, “Excuse me”?

Later on we were at Trader Joe’s.  I’d just grabbed a package of sliced mushrooms and given it to my husband.  I was still standing in front of the mushrooms when a man came up from behind me and got real close to choose his own mushrooms.  All fine and good, except he was breathing down my neck and I had to suddenly push into my husband to avoid being pushed by this man.

Why didn’t he just say, “Excuse me?”

I want to challenge us as human beings, to reclaim these simple virtues of saying, “Excuse me” and “Thank you” – even when it’s with people we don’t know while we’re out running errands.

What do you think?  What would it be like if everyone shopping at a store said, “Excuse me” and “Thank you”?

Have you ever struggled with guilt of not being responsible?

For years I have struggled with this.  I thought to be responsible meant I had to become the perfect wife, mom, daughter, etc.  How far from the truth this is!

Mind you, in my head I knew that was silly.  But in my heart, what was the reigning thought?  It was, “You’re so irresponsible.  See, the way you grew up will stay with you.  Old habits die hard.”  For years I believed this and beat myself up over little things that I thought I was being irresponsible for.  Even though I’m doing so much better with it now!

Well, enough is enough!  We are not supposed to be perfect.  That is a burden too huge for any one person to bear.

One day I was listening to a message at one of my company conventions.  The speaker said, “To be responsible means to be Response-Able.”

Response-Able simply means Able To Respond!  Are you and I able to respond?  Absolutely.  This one truth has helped me greatly in my mindset towards what it means to be responsible – that it’s not some big unattainable character trait that’s out of my reach.  I hope it helps you too if you struggle with it.

What has helped you in your mindset towards guilt over something?

Happy New Year!

It’s not only a new year…it’s a new decade.  Has 2010 flown by for you, as it has for me?

As blessed as we are, many people I know, myself included, have had a tough year.  One person has said she’s ready to bury 2010 and embrace all that 2011 has to offer.  I echo that sentiment.

I have not been one to make resolutions.  Heck, I even have trouble making goals.  But one thing I’m determined to do this year, is move in the direction of my dreams – not be immobilized by fear.

The way I’ll do this is what was advised in this profound post, What will motivate you in 2011?  It might surprise you!

What will motivate me is finding at least 3 pains in each of these areas:

• Physical
• Emotional
• Financial
• Spiritual
• Relational

How about you?  Do you make new years resolutions or goals?

Over the weekend our family visited a new church.

And I was struck by these words written in large letters on a wall near the children’s classrooms:

Uniqueness is…

Learning more about others so you can know more about yourself.

Isn’t that true?  We all kind of reflect each other.  When we’re not real clear on who we are, it can be a great time to take our eyes off ourselves so we can learn more about others.

How we process things on behalf of another person can give us a window into our own hearts and minds.  That being said, we’re all still unique in our own way.

What a fascinating concept.  What kind of things have you learned more about others that let you know more about yourself?

Sometimes life can feel overwhelming, right?

We have our routines in place and everything running…and then someone in our family gets sick and plans change.  Or, everyone in our family gets under the weather and everything changes.

How do we roll with it?

One day at a time.  Even moment by moment.

It’s a challenge when we’re under the weather.  What does help is doing things that inspire me, keep me learning and hoping.  I’m moved by the stories and determination of people who work hard and keep giving to people around them.  The people who value integrity, discipline and serving others.  A special thanks to these people in my life who serve as my role models.

Do you have role models that inspire you?