Aber die Musici bleiben besteh’n

Music Alone Shall Live (All Things Shall Perish) Himmel und Erde müssen vergeh'n, Aber die Musici, Aber die Musici, Aber die Musici bleiben besteh'n   All things shall perish from under the sky, Music alone shall live Music alone shall live Music alone shall live, never to die.   So before you wonder if I'm going crazy, the answer is no, no I'm not.  I've been thinking a LOT about the power of music and what an awesome motivator it can be.  THEN I heard Don't Stop by Fleetwood Mac and I felt like I HAD to share the lyrics.  From there it was time to come up with a title for the blog post when this song I sang at a music festival popped into my head and I knew if I put the title in German, it would require some explanation.  Wow...long convoluted explanation to get to the blog post, lol. Don't Stop - Christine McVie. Sometimes, getting up and just getting out of bed can be the biggest struggle.  Who wants to leave their nice safe cozy haven to face who knows what?  And then there is the whole concept of morning.  It's absolutely evil to some…

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One Step Backward. Two Steps Forward – Chris Cade

by Chris Cade "There actually are great spiritual secrets. They exist. The thing about spiritual secrets is that you can tell them openly. Because the ability to understand something and then the power to integrate into your life are two very different things." - Guy Finley As people on the path of conscious living, we almost always have a gap between what we know and how we live. That's not a bad thing. It's just that living 100% of what we believe to be true is difficult because there's so many subconscious barriers to doing it. We might live 75% of what we know on one day. Then life challenges shift us closer to 50%. Then we do some inner work, and it bounces up to 80%. And this process continues. This kind of "two steps forward one step back" is fundamental on the path of conscious living. On one hand, we can punish ourselves emotionally for not doing what we "know" is right. That's the Inner Critic taking its hold on us. Telling us we "know better" and "should do better." On the other hand, we can accept our humanity and recognize that each step "back" is an opportunity to…

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A New Year a New Outlook

This is NOT going to be one of those look back over the past year type of posts.  I could do that, but I figure just about everybody in the bloggerverse is doing that, and I'm a rebel. 2011 was a rough year for a lot of people, myself included, and I see no point in in reliving it.  It's time to move forward, and move forward with purpose, drive, determination and joy.  Joy?  Yes, joy.  Because great things are going to happen in 2012. Great, wonderful and amazing things. Set your goals in your mind, and see yourself achieving them.  Do this every day.  Develop a plan, and take baby steps toward that goal.   Just keep reminding yourself that every day in every way you are a unique and incredible individual filled with love and light! Have a wonderful and prosperous 2012 and stay positive!

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Being Stuck

I don't know if you've noticed a lack of blog posts this week.  There are several reasons for that.  I've been very busy with the start of the new school year,I've been sick,  and I've also been a bit down. I know, I know, I'm all about thinking positive, and lifting yourself up when your down.  I have tons of different strategies to help lift my mood.  I did them - and they helped - to an extent.  But when my mood didn't lift as much as i would like, I realized it was time for some deeper soul searching.  So search I did.  I didn't necessarily like the results of my search, but that's another story. I think, deep down, I knew it was time to make some changes in my life.  Changes that I didn't necessarily want to make, and changes that quite frankly scared me - hence the down in the dumps.  :) Why am I telling you this?  To help you realize that sometimes there are down times, and they usually happen for a reason.  So when you hit one of those down in the dumps times in your life, do your best to get yourself…

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Teaching Others to Help Yourself – Chris Cade

"We teach that which we most need to learn." ~ David Bach Some version of that quote has been used by leaders for as long as I can remember, and for good reason. While it's wonderful when we learn something new, the best way to integrate new knowledge and make it stick in our lives is to teach it. This is because teaching challenges us to really understand what we're learning. It challenges us to understand it with such clarity that we can effectively communicate it to others. Teaching also exposes us to feedback from others, and that feedback is helpful (and sometimes even necessary) for us to understand something deeply enough to integrate it into our lives. Those are just a few of the benefits you get by teaching something. Studies have shown that when you are first learning something, that if you teach it to somebody shortly thereafter, you'll remember what you learn more effectively and understand it more thoroughly. In fact, some teaching methods ~ ironically ~ require students to immediately turn around and teach others what they learn. The beauty of this approach is that it doesn't only deepen learning; it also creates more effective leaders…

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Happy Thoughts

Your happy, positive feelings will attract happy, positive circumstances. originally posted 9/3/10 I'm sitting here wondering what can I say about this that hasn't been said thousands of times before, and I've got nothing. I think we all pretty much GET it. I mean it's not rocket science after all. If you are thinking happy, good positive, thoughts, you're going to attract happy good, positive things to you. But what do you do when your car breaks down and the repair cost is twice what is in your checking account, and the kids need new school supplies and your hours got cut at work? What then? How in the world are you supposed to have all these happy, positive thoughts when your world is basically imploding around you? I'll tell you, it's NOT easy, but it can be done. Try and find even one sliver of good in all that's going wrong. Okay, sure your car broke, but at least you have a car. Sure, buying things for your kids for school is a drain on the budget, but you have healthy, happy kids who are going to school and learning. And maybe your hours are being cut at work…

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Can You Please Help

What is Donors Choose?  Donorschoose.org is a nonprofit that connects public school teachers with people who want to support classroom learning.   My Students: Some students love school and love learning and have everything they need to be successful learners. I want my students to have what they need to be successful learners. My students are in a special education program in an urban school. Half the time they come to school hungry, never mind with proper school supplies. Free and reduced lunches gets them the food, it's up to me to get them the supplies they need to become active learners. My Project: My students come to school with nothing, no notebooks, pens, pencils or paper. What they have, I've provided. They can be successful, but they need the basic tools. They are also so creative, and providing them with art supplies can channel their creativity to appropriate projects. We also just got two computers in our room, but we had nothing to put them on, so we had to use our existing student tables. The computer carts will give us a place to use the computers and give us back our tables to use for seating. My students…

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Hand in Hand

Remember, we all stumble, every one of us. That's why it's a comfort to go hand in hand. - Emily Kimbrough We are taught at a young age to be strong, and stand on our own two feet and to depend upon ourselves first and foremost. Now I'm not saying that being strong is a bad thing, because it's not. And knowing that you can count on yourself, that's great. It's good to have that kind of faith in yourself. What we tend to forget that we don't have to go it alone. We venture forth, we try things, we stumble, pick ourselves back up and try again. This is the journey of life. But the cool thing is, we don't have to make that journey alone. Let someone help you, and provide support - to steady you when you stumble. You in turn can lend a hand and keep them upright when their road becomes bumpy. Let people in and let your journey through life will be that much more richer.

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My Own Personal Thoughts and Growth

I was  reading this post over at The Daily Love, and it was like getting hit over the head with an anvil a la Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.  Parts of it were like reading my own life story.  Think Positive 30 started out on Live Journal.  One of my dear friends and I were kvetching about how miserable our lives were and she commented that she was feeling really negative.  To compensate, she was going to post one positive thought a day in her LJ.  I thought it was an amazing idea and I made a community on Live Journal called Think Positive 30.  I figured there were probably other people that felt that way.  The community was small (very small).  It’s concept was post a positive thought for 30 consecutive days and get in the habit of thinking or finding positive things in your day.  Then we got made a spotlight community on Live Journal and membership EXPLODED.  I used to try and comment on everybody’s posts and be supportive, but when we were spotlighted, it stopped being fun and became hard work. (more…)

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Joy Happens

Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. - Marianne Williamson I've noticed something. When you ask somebody how things are going, they either respond with an "Okay," but when you ask for details they treat you to a litany of things that are bad, or they don't even bother to pay lip service to the mighty "Okay" and jump right on in to all the woes in their lives. I'm guilty of it too. It is so darn easy to fall in to the negativity trap and focus on all the things that are wrong or bad or difficult in your life. The thing is, the more you think about them and talk about them, the more power you're giving them. And the more power you give to all that negativity, the bigger it gets and the more it takes control of your life.  So instead of focusing on all the negative things, find the positive things.  Even if it's one teeny tiny little thing that you think would sound insignificant, focus on it, share it, shout it from the rooftops if you have to.  Soon you'll find that there…

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