How Chasing Forever Steals Our Joy Right Now

Our favorite childhood stories end in “happily ever after”.   We love weddings that promise love until “death do us part”.   We focus on the comfort of knowing that our deepest love and joy will last…well, forever.  Since I’m a romantic by nature, I was a big fan of all this too, until recently.  Now I’ve come to see how living in this “forever” story actually steals our joy from right now – the only moment we truly ever have.

Exploring eastern culture, I’m learning how our desires and attachments cause us to crave more of what we enjoy and avoid anything we don’t.  I see how I have written a story with each pain or loss about how I caused that by being a certain way, and how I vowed to change that aspect of myself (either my own behavior or my choices) so I could avoid that in the future.  Likewise, I did the reverse with happy circumstances to create more of those.  Over time, I got so lost in little and big stories I’d written and modifications I’d made that I wasn’t at all my authentic self.  More ironically, I wasn’t any closer to lasting happiness and I was so wrapped up in my past lessons and future desires that I wasn’t even living in the present at all.  When I looked around, I was surrounded by people doing the same thing.

It’s great to have dreams.  It’s commendable to evolve into better people through the lessons of our lives.  What seems a waste is to lose ourselves, our true selves, in the stories of our past and the desires of our future until we are not living the only moment that matters: right now.  Finding ways to return to the present moment can help us break this cycle and appreciate what we have right now.

Meditation returns us to the present moment and helps us train our chattering minds to take a break.  Slow body movement exercises or dance can bring us back to center.  Nature helps us enjoy the moment in a breeze, the rustle of leaves, the glimpse of a soaring bird.

When we love those we are with right now, give thanks for all our blessings right now, savor even our own pain as a reminder that we are fully and completely alive to feel everything right now, we are living our truth.  The past and the future are just our stories.  Right now is the joy we were trying to create and plan for throughout our distracted past.  Let’s not remain so distracted as to miss it!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Are You Ready to Die Right Now?

“The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.”  Epictetus

TEDx The Woodlands has been such a joy this weekend!  It is such an honor to be in a room filled with people who are brilliant, open in mind and heart, and only wish to inspire one another and create positive change wherever possible.

At TEDx The Woodlands, we also watched videos from other TEDx conferences.  One of those videos was too powerful not to post for you today. Even if you’ve seen it before, treat yourself and watch again.

We all owe it to ourselves to keep company with people who are just beyond our comfort zone, who challenge us to grow and expand, and who inspire us to risk living fully open and to pursue our passions.  Tomorrow, next week, next year (if we are here that long),  we will either be more fulfilled and amazed by our own lives and those around us or not; the determining factor will be the choices we make today.

May all your right-nows be filled with dreaming, laughing, and loving with those who inspire you.

Sheryl Sitts, BA, Certified Family Mediator
Founder & CIO (Chief Inspirational Officer)
Journey of Possibilities

There Is No Status Quo

Every day we actively make choices that move us closer to joyful, purposeful living, or further away from it.  Many of us struggle with exercise, so let’s take that as an example. Lately my schedule has made it easy to slip back into procrastination about my wellness.  I lie in bed in the morning tired and I make deals with myself.  I tell myself I need to sleep in today because I’m so tired, but  I’ll make it up tomorrow at the gym.  I become complacent about not meeting my fitness goals as quickly and tell myself stories about how I have time, there’s always tomorrow, or my favorite, I’m okay with the status quo for one more day.  I wish!  The truth is that when I fail to engage my cells and muscles to stay active, I choose to be less energetic, carry extra weight, and be more vulnerable to sickness and disease.  Far from the status quo,  I’m clearly moving away from my goals and reinforcing bad habits.

This doesn’t just apply to weight and fitness.  What goals have you put off  in your life?  Education?  Hobbies?  Socializing?  Travel?  Special interests?  Career development or change?  Where have you been telling yourself  you’ll get around to ________ as soon as ______________?  Any time we put anything or anyone above our own truth (which is being well and living purposefully), we are not merely accepting the status quo.  We are agreeing to be ‘less than’ our potential, less than our own Divine possibility.  Women are particularly encouraged by instinct and culture to put ourselves last, although some men do this as well.   We’ve all procrastinated because of fear or convenience at some time or another, haven’t we?  I joke that it actually runs in my family.

There are certain things we must do for ourselves that no one else can do for us, no matter how much they love us!   We alone can properly nurture and care for our bodies, minds, and spirits.  We alone can live the life we are here to live.

If we’re honest with ourselves, we must admit that nothing remains the same, so then the only real status quo is change.  As the popular expression says: if we’re not living, we’re dying.   Let’s empower ourselves by understanding that every choice we make and every action we take moves us closer to, or further away from, our goals and dreams.  There simply is no status quo.

Healing Spaces

Life sure can knock us down…low! At one point several years ago, I actually walked out of a well-paying professional job at which I was doing well and moved myself to an island. Stressed out and depressed, grieving the loss of my parents, new marriage struggling, I was hurting. This was just the sort of irrationally desperate move in which we surprise even ourselves! All I really knew for sure was that I couldn’t keep doing what I’d been doing anymore. It was only in this state that I finally gave myself the time and space I needed to heal. It was only in this place that I nurtured myself with endless walks on the beach. It was only through this move that I discovered I really was self-sufficient beyond my successful career. I lived on the barter system and met others on the island who’d arrived in similar condition. There was a large movement of healing in this community I soon discovered and connected into. That energy was so powerful! I participated in sweat lodges. I danced with scarves on the beach with a silver haired native American angel. I went back to school. I had an amazing time renewing myself! All of this was made possible because I had finally surrendered and sought healing.

Later in my life, I was again facing loss when I took a retail job at an outdoor recreational store. Not clear why I was shifting to retail, I soon realized that I had been drawn to another healing space to connect with nature and others in pain.  Several coworkers from across the country had been drawn there from a myriad of experiences and were searching for their own healing and Purpose. Not only did we create wonderful bonds and memories, but together we went into nature to beautify, conserve, educate, and enjoy. Once again, sharing nature with kindred healing spirits strengthened and healed me.

Healing spaces are so vital to our happiness and growth! When we find ourselves grieving painful loss, we are more vulnerable and open than at any other times in our life. When we surrender, we find ourselves Divinely guided to people and places that facilitate our healing. When we don’t surrender, we find ourselves quickly getting lost in alcohol, work, shopping, drugs, food, and any other distractions we can find to avoid the pain. Ultimately, walking through the pain is the only path to healing, so how much better to face it now than to add addiction recovery and making amends to our healing process later!

One word of warning about healing spaces: know when to leave them. Such comforting places do not inspire us to move on when our healing time is passed. When the time is right, we must leave or we will not achieve our potential made possible by that healing.   Maintain the beautiful friendships formed there. Visit the healing space for renewal. However, as Master Yoda would say, leave we must. Our final gift is to pay forward the love and healing we’ve experienced to those we meet who suffer. It is also to nudge along those who are ready to fly but afraid to leave the healing space themselves. In seeing us fly, we inspire them. A cycle is completed and we have ourselves become a healing space for others.

Let’s Make a Deal

Do you recall the game show Let’s Make a Deal?  Contestants could either keep prizes they won or gamble them for bigger prizes. It  was fun to watch and consider whether I would keep the prize or risk it for something better.    Of course it was much easier to say I’d take that risk as I watched from the comfort of my own home with nothing to lose.

How we make decisions in our daily lives isn’t really so different, is it?  Every day we opt to live in the Truth of who we are and see where that leads us, or to accept a job/mate/lifestyle that we know to be less than our heart’s desire.  The difference is that we aren’t on a game show, and God wouldn’t tease us with a bigger dream, daring us to take less or risk maybe not receiving the grand prize!

Florence Scovel Shinn wrote some 90 years ago (tho The Game of Life and How to Play It remains timelessly accurate today) that God typically sends an “olive branch” as in the great flood as a sign of larger blessings ahead.  This is NOT the prize!  However, if we accept that olive branch and then abandon pursuit of the larger dream, we have left the game as assuredly as if we were a contestant on that show returning to our seat.  How much better to give thanks for these olive branches and continue in faith along our journey of Possibilities to our own best Life.

Sheryl Sitts

www.JourneyOfPossibilities.com

www.Facebook.com/JourneyOfPossibilities

The Spiritual Continuum

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Fear/Stress/Busyness/Resistance                                Love/Peace/Stillness/Acceptance

Have you ever become so frustrated with a situation or relationship in your life that you threw up your hands and said something like, “OK God, I can’t do this anymore!”  Did you give it to God when you couldn’t take it anymore?  How did that feel?  Then what happened?  As it started to improve, did you find yourself slowly taking charge yourself again, as if to say, “Thanks God.  I’ve got it now”?  Maybe you just grabbed it back completely in one panicked moment and didn’t leave anything at all for God to manage?  Honestly, I can’t even remember how many times I have done this in my lifetime.

As I explore my own life as a Journey of Possibilities, I recognize our spiritual Journey as a Continuum.   When I am scared, stressed out, trying to stay busy, or resisting the flow of life, it’s a safe bet that I’m running the show.  I’ve even lost myself in addiction before so I didn’t have to see whatever I was avoiding.  At the other end of the spectrum, I know that feeling of being filled with love, serenity, and acceptance of everything just as it is, trusting God’s perfect Design and Order.  That’s the way my life feels when I put God in charge.

Whenever my life becomes unmanageable, as they say in the 12-step program, I surrender and let go…not of one thing, but of everything.  The moment I do, I instantly begin moving back across the Continuum.  Thankfully, God doesn’t have a waiting period!

If there is such peace in letting go, then why do we resist turning everything over to God? Boy, don’t we always want to be in charge!  We blindly trudge forth in busyness (often by losing ourselves in business), believing that even a little progress is better than the stillness of waiting on God.  However, any gains made this way always prove futile later against the grand Design.  When it is God’s Time for something to occur, all is manifested at amazing speed and often with much less effort on our part.

One way to check our status on the Spiritual Continuum is through daily prayer and meditation.  Give God a bit of your time, and consistently check your human urge to take control.  The sooner we surrender to God, the sooner we return to the flow of Divine Harmony.  Trusting that all is exactly as it should be brings amazing serenity no matter what is going on in this Earth School.

Sheryl Sitts

www.JourneyOfPossibilities.com

www.Facebook.com/JourneyOfPossibilities

Seeing Things Differently

Recently, I’ve begun praying that God would help me to “see things differently and find the best, most healing path” in areas of my life where I become frustrated, hurt, angry, impatient, or confused. It is amazing how quickly a receptive heart praying this earnestly will begin to see other aspects of a situation that open new possibilities, understanding, and healing. Let me give you an example relating to career.

Have you ever chosen a job you just knew you wanted, and prepared yourself for the day it became available so you could apply? Maybe you’ve had a job you loved but something happened there, and you promised yourself you’d return to that work one day.  Both of these opportunities presented themselves for me this week, and the most amazing thing happened.  I no longer see my future in either role!  In fact, I am completely certain that God has something else in store for me, bigger than I ever dared to dream for myself.   I prayed about each opportunity, and instead saw myself much happier elsewhere than I’ve ever been…creating Journey of Possibilities!   God helped me to see things differently and know instinctively the right course of action….and trust this vision will be realized in perfect Divine time and order.   He also showed me that our possibilities are not among those visible to us in this reality, but the realm of ALL possibilities known and visible to Him and made available to us by giving Him control of our life.

Is there someone with whom you are frustrated? Is a particular area of your life feeling blocked? Is there some lesson that keeps presenting itself in the same annoying way over and over in your life?  Try praying with a truly open heart for God to help you see things differently with regard that that person or circumstance and find the best, most healing path for your future.   This prayer opens the door to abundant peace and allows miracles to happen in your  life!

Sheryl Sitts
www.JourneyOfPossibilities.com
www.Facebook.com/JourneyOfPossibilities

Never Settle

Good ol’ Mom (RIP) used to say these words to me about marriage.  I’d discuss a boyfriend with whom things were getting serious, and she’d teach me to distinguish between traits that are less important and those that define the essence and character of a person.  When discussing the latter, she engrained into me to “never settle”.  So powerful was this message that I recall looking deep inside on that sleepless night before my wedding to be sure I had no doubts and was not settling on the values that meant the most to me.

A friend of mine and I were recently discussing another perspective for living life:  “expect nothing”.  At first horrified by the sound of that, I now understand that he means we should not expect anything in order to receive all that is, just as it is.  That does not contrast with “never settle”, and in fact it helps us clarify in every relationship whether the other person possesses that which we value most, and how much we actually make each others lives better.

There is no judgement in saying that a person is or is not right for us, or a relationship does or does not work.  It is much like cooking and trying different spices together to determine which spice bring out the potential of a dish.  We must keep in mind that God dreams a bigger dream for us than we dream for ourselves and God will fulfill dreams.  By settling for a partner or spouse who is not our best match, we no longer leave an opening for our best match to enter when we do encounter him/her.  That is a high price for settling.

You may be thinking that it takes more than one spice to bring out the potential in a dish.  So true!  This is why “never settle” applies to much more than one relationship in our life.  Expecting one partner to be our everything is not only unrealistic, but it strains a relationship with pressure that is unhealthy and may ultimately break it.  Having quality friends, work, hobbies, etc. completes our lives much as those important secondary spices enrich a recipe. That is why in all facets of our life we should “never settle”.   Life is a bountiful buffet not to be consumed in mass, but to receive in gratitude, then carefully selecting that which enriches and fulfills us at our deepest level.

Sheryl Sitts

Journey of Possibilities

www.JourneyOfPossibilities.com

www.Facebook.com/JourneyOfPossibilities