I had so much fun celebrating our differences in yesterday’s post that I thought today’s post would be similar – just going a bit deeper with it.  This writing prompt from Journaling Further Within: 50 More Prompts for Self Exploration is perfect to help us begin to embrace our differences and celebrate how we are all unique. =&0=& When we start to see how similar we all are and try to understand why someone would have a belief that differs from our own, we can begin the process of supporting each other. We can begin the process of being sympathetic instead of judgmental. We can begin to understand that being different isn’t bad. If we were all the same the world would be a very boring place. Our differences add so much color to our lives. And this is such a great part of living!  So spend some time today thinking about someone in your life that differs in many ways from you. By putting yourself into their world and practicing compassion and understanding, you can begin to see that they are just doing the best they can with the tools that are available to them. This is true for each of us. We are each good at our core, and our differences are there to help us learn empathy and compassion. They are also great simply to show us another path – another option available to us. There are so many ways to spend our time on this planet – let’s celebrate our differences instead of seeing them as threatening. Let’s enjoy how unique we all are. They do say that variety is the spice of life. 🙂

I absolutely love Haagen-Dazs Mango Sorbet. Seriously – I am in love with it.   They were on sale the last time we went to the grocery store, so we bought two.  Dan and I thought it would be fun to each have our own and see who finished first.  And in doing so, we learned something about each other – even after almost 10 years of being together:  we eat our ice cream completely differently! My container had one hole in it that went deep down. I stuck with what worked and didn’t venture off of that course.  His container was evenly smoothed over – so he when he got to the bottom, it would be completely finished – nothing left behind. And this really didn’t surprise either of us at all – both ways seemed to fit with each personality. While we each wanted the same result (to finish the ice cream), we went about it in completely different ways. And one way wasn’t better than the other – they were just different. I think this is a really great metaphor for life – we are all living our lives and striving to do our best. We are all learning to love ourselves, our friends, and our family. We are each following our dreams and living our ideal lives. And we each get to that place in a different way, which is the magical part – the beautiful part. I love this – we can each learn so much from each other because we are each so different yet also so much the same. See, I told you it was good sorbet! 😉

Sometimes we are on a roll in our lives where everything feels like it’s going really well and flowing effortlessly. And then we add something new – something that is out of the norm from our every day life. We stretch a little bit out of our comfort zone and expect things to continue flowing. And sometimes they do.  But sometimes we come across obstacles where we didn’t expect them to be. Sometimes we even come across road blocks that seem to be right in the way of reaching our dreams. When this happens, take a look at these obstacles and notice where they are coming from and what messages they are conveying. Are they coming from fear – is our ego stepping in and warning us that it might be scary to try new things? Are they coming from outdated beliefs that we have about achieving success and finding true happiness? Or maybe we haven’t stretched our adventure muscles in awhile and just need more practice.  Over the past week, I have been writing my book, and I have stumbled upon many obstacles – some that I had a feeling would show up and others that I’ve been surprised by. And while I recognize them for what they are (old fears and distractions coming up to keep me comfortable), I still have to work through them and move them aside. This dream is too big to allow anything to stand in my way. I was listening to a powerful telesummit yesterday with Jack Canfield where he was talking about how we can live our ideal life – even with the obstacles. He brought up the great point that we are always going to have obstacles – but our response to these obstacles is entirely our choice. We get to choose our thoughts, which means we also get to choose our outcome. So the next time we are reaching for our dream and we come across an obstacle – take some time to go within and try to get to the bottom of the message it brings up. And then thank it for showing up and teaching you more about yourself, and either push through it or go around it. Keep moving forward. We are all learning lessons every day. And with each lesson, we are all getting closer and closer to our truest self – our divine soul. And every obstacle and road block is helping us do just that. They are also great tools to show us just how passionate we are about achieving our dreams and living our ideal life. Every obstacle we push through and every barrier we eliminate leads us closer to our dreams.

Have you ever embarked on a wonderful new adventure that you were super excited about, and just when you really started to get into it with both feet in – fear stepped up and started listing all of the reasons why it’s probably not a good idea for you to do this after all and tries to get you to see how much safer it would be for you to just step back into your comfort zone?

When this happens, what if we took some time to listen to what fear has to say? 

It’s there to protect More

It is wonderful to surround yourself with loving friends and family who cheer you on and support you in everything you do.  I feel blessed that I have a great support system. I have a wonderful husband who loves me and boosts me up no matter what I do. I have a loving mom who has always been there for me and allowed me to always be myself. And I also have supportive friends who love me and honor me. Their love means the world to me. And it’s easy to sometimes rely on their support rather than look within and be my own cheerleader.  And I started thinking about what would happen if we were each our own biggest cheerleaders? Rather than looking for love and support outside of ourselves, what if we turned inward and began to cheer ourselves on instead? =&0=&