Embrace today! Release yesterday!

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“Embrace today! Release yesterday!” is one of my favorite quotes. It’s a simple way to remind me to enjoy this life as it is. The heart which harbors ill feelings is a heart that is hardened. It’s a heart that can’t experience the greatness and love that surrounds it. That’s no life to live.

Forgiveness seems to be one of the hardest behaviors for us to practice. We refuse to forgive those who have hurt us in fear of being weak or unintelligent. True unconditional forgiveness doesn’t mean you’re less intelligent or weak. It simply means you have matured enough to realize people make mistakes, even if it’s on purpose.

When you choose to be unforgiving, you have given away all your power to the person who wronged you – which I’m sure isn’t your intention. If you truly want to live a life filled with peace, success, and happiness, then you must learn to forgive and let go.

Release all your hurts. Give them away. Give them to God. He can bear them. It’s time for you to let them go. It’s time for you to stop being weighed down in life. Step into your perfect peace which the world can’t penetrate. Your greatness is on the other side of unforgiveness. Why risk it all, the beauty, riches, happiness, and pure joy?

Failure is the precursor to success. If you change the way you view failures, mistakes, and mis-steps, your life will greatly change. A setback is nothing more than your set-up for greatness. Some of the most valuable lessons are learned through failures: failed marriages, businesses, and relationships. This is the time when you truly learn what you are made of. It’s when you discover your compelling reason to keep pushing.

Failure shouldn’t be shunned but embraced. You can’t win until you fail. Success comes from perseverance and the sheer determination to keep going in spite of. Don’t worry about yesterday’s failures. Sometimes you have to just learn the lesson, readjust your plan, and get back out there.

Giving of yourself is one of the keys to lasting happiness. Selflessness goes much farther than selfishness. A sincere giving heart is never weary but one that’s constantly taking is hurting. When you give of yourself to others, it inspires others to give of themselves to you. It’s one of the basic laws of humanity. It revives our soul and connects us to our Creator. It’s the heartbeat of life. To truly experience all that life has and can be, you must look past yourself.

Belief is the most powerful glue in existence. It doesn’t matter what is thrown your way, when you believe, there is nothing that can tear you away from your greatness. It’s that feeling that pushes you to fight when the world tells you it’s over. Without belief, life has no true purpose.

While you’re on your journey, remember: Embrace today! Release yesterday!

Senica Evans| Inspire Me Today

Agape

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Agape, a Greek word meaning unconditional love, is the single most powerful tool in existence for changing one’s life and the lives of those around you. Unconditional love changes your heart rate, your skin temperature and even the dilation of your pupils. It softens your perspective on the world around you, which of course softens the perspective of others toward you.

You might ask, how is it possible to have agape (unconditional love) in such an angry world? The answer is quite simple… if you live your life in the instant moment, not what was, or what might be, there is actually only a moment of drama.

Drama both comes and departs in a moment. It is either in the past or the future. Love unconditionally and live for right now… this minute, this moment, for right now is really all there is.

Forgiveness purges your life of misery. Forgiveness allows you to breathe a full breath. Think about it… when you are angry, how does it feel to breathe? Do your lungs fill with air and your body experience a deep sense of relaxation? That is the way it is supposed to feel.

When you harbor anger, a number of events occur in your body and the best way I can describe it is like this: if you have ever been driving, looked in your rear view mirror and saw the blue lights of a police car flashing, the typical response is a subtle sense of heightened awareness in the gut.

This sense of subtle heightened awareness in the gut (now also known as the “second brain”) is neurons firing. Neurons are nerve cells and nerve cells talk. Once these neurons fire, signals much like Morse code are sent through your autonomic nervous system to the brain.

The brain then interprets the length of and space in between each signal and the amount of voltage (voltage being equivalent to emotion) pushing the signals through your body. This interpretation in turn causes the release of chemicals and hormones such as cortisol and norepinephrine that promote inflammatory processes in your body, ultimately causing dis-ease.

Be acutely aware of what you are thinking. By doing so you can control both your happiness and your health! Your reality will be created by your emotions coupled with the background noise of mind such as “I am sick of this. I am sick of that. I hate this. I hate that.” In other words, you are your emotions!

Science, via physics, has now proven that there is no matter on the quantum level. What does this mean? It means that regardless of what you might think, we are one energy with everything that is. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, separating us from anything else. Therefore, what we do to another, we are literally doing to ourselves and the entire world.

Be of service to others. By being of service to others, you fill the void for love in your own life and the lives of humanity as a whole.

Eva Herr | Inspire Me Today

8 DOs and DON’Ts for Writing a Holiday Letter

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The holiday letter has traditionally been a way of letting extended family  and friends know what’s going on in your life, and the lives of your immediate  family. The key to a well-written holiday  letter is maintaining a delicate dance between truth and embellishment,  reality and aspiration.

Achieving this balance is a tricky task—regardless of your circumstances. But  it becomes even more difficult if you’re responsible for taking care of an  ailing loved one.

How do you tell friends and family about mom’s declining health? Do you have  to adopt a false, ‘Positive Polly’ attitude for the sake of appearing  calm and in control? What do you say to family members who you feel have  abandoned you?

Make your own rules for the holiday

The first step: stop, take a deep breath, and decide whether or not you  really want to write a holiday letter.

Even if your yearly missive has been a fixture of the family festivities, you  shouldn’t feel as though you have to keep doing it just because it’s a  “tradition.”

“The holidays are a great time to stop and reflect on life,” says Cindy  Laverty, caregiver coach, radio talk show host, and author. “The year I chose  not to get caught up in all the hype, everything changed for me. I made the  rules.”

Make sure you’re writing your letter for the right reasons—to update family  and friends, to reminisce about the events of the past year, and to re-connect  with people you may have fallen out of touch with.

What story do you want to tell?

Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), Laverty says you should  ask yourself one question: “What would I write about my life if this was the  last holiday that I would ever have with my loved one?”

Use this question as a starting off point to determine the purpose of the  letter, and do some brainstorming and outlining to clarify your topics and tone  before you begin writing.

Some letter writing dos and don’ts

Laverty offers a series of suggestions for how to appropriately address  sensitive caregiving topics in a holiday letter:

1. Do: discuss your  caregiving responsibilities. While it’s important to realize that you  are more than just a caregiver,  it’s equally as important to acknowledge the valuable role you play in  safeguarding your loved one’s health and wellbeing. As long as you feel  comfortable talking about the caregiving aspects of your life, don’t hesitate to  include them in your letter.

2. Don’t: engage in a gripe session. According to Laverty  it’s essential to avoid using a holiday letter to lash out at those who may have  been less than supportive of your caregiving. “This is not the time to try and  make people feel guilty for not being there for you,” she says. This doesn’t  mean you have to make caregiving sound like a breeze. Laverty offers the  following prompt to get you started: “As many of you know, I’ve been my ________  (fill in the blank) caregiver for the past ____ (fill in the blank) and it  hasn’t been easy. But the good news is that I’ve learned a lot about ______  (fill in the blank) and about myself. If you ever become a caregiver, I’ll be  able to help you out with some interesting insights. Truthfully, some days are  easy. Others are more difficult and some days, I’d rather forget.”

3. Do: talk about how your loved one is doing. Friends and  family—especially those who don’t communicate with you very often—will  appreciate being updated on how a loved one is faring.

4. Don’t: go into the gory details. Again, toeing the line  between being honest and sharing too much information can be challenging.  Because you are the one on the front lines, dealing with your loved one’s health  issue on a daily basis, it can be hard to take a step back and figure out what  to tell and what to leave out. Laverty suggests keeping things simple: “____  (fill in the blank) continues to struggle with his/her ______ (fill in the  blank) and that probably won’t change (if the condition is chronic). If you are  reading my letter and you know my ____ (fill in the blank), I can tell you that  he would love to hear from you.” If you want to give family and friends an  easy-to-understand update on your loved one’s overall condition (i.e. mood,  memory, eating, sleeping, finances, etc.), you may want to consider filling out  and including an AgingCare.com Care Report in your letter.

5. Do: Send your letter to family and friends. The main  thing to consider when figuring out whom to send your holiday letter to: Would  you enjoy reading a holiday letter from them? If the answer is yes, then they’d  probably be a good addition to your mailing list.

6. Don’t: include everyone. When it comes to holiday  updates, close friends and family members should make up the bulk of your  audience.

7. Do: reach out. One great thing about sending out a  holiday letter is that it can help you reconnect with people you may have fallen  out of touch with. It can also provide you with the perfect entrée to casually  ask for help or support. Laverty suggests sending a personal note along with  your letter to certain people, saying that you’d like to get together and catch  up over a cup of coffee.

8. Don’t: assign blame. While it may be tempting to do so, a  holiday letter is not the appropriate place to engage in a gripe session. If it  helps, you may want to go to an online forum or caregiver support group to vent  before sitting down to write your letter. As Laverty says, “If there is bad  blood between family members, a holiday letter is not the place to express  yourself.”