100 Days of Wisdom: Wisdom Day 80 – The Wisdom in Connection and Belonging

Wisdom Day 80: The Wisdom in Connection and Belonging

Read about the 100 days of Wisdom™ Project by Tonya Marie

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“Friend Chick” picture  taken during Barbra Watson-Riley’s memorial services weekend in Phoenix, AZ

“We gather in a group to be witnessed, to be supported, and to be both equalized and elevated in our struggles, gifts and ambitions. Common ground is very fertile ground … it is, what Emerson calls, “…the common heart of which all sincere conversation is worship.” Where two or more are joined with the same intention, grace intensifies and solutions multiply. Belongingness heals and nourishes with its affirmative recognition that we are not alone. Simultaneously, we are able to experience our unity and our uniqueness.” ~ Danielle LaPorte

December 22, 2013

Dearest Wisdom Circle,

Barbra Watson-Riley

I love this passage from Danielle LaPorte. And oh boy do I need a support circle right now. As an only child, sometimes I can withdrawal into my own world to be with me, myself and I when the ups, downs and challenges of life start to snowball and weigh me down. And recently I lost a childhood sister friend, Barbra Watson-Riley (a/k/a Pinkwellchick), to triple negative breast cancer.

So the allure of solitude is great.

The rush of adrenalin that hit as the signs of her inevitable passing began to quicken is gone. And the reality of her absence has hit me and her family and friends hard. But one of the greatest gifts Barbra gave to us is the gift of true, authentic, enduring friendship. She was a self-described and fully actualized “friend chick”. She had so many circles of friends and one of her greatest joys in life was when those circles intersected and overlapped. Her passing has brought us all together. To grieve. To forgive. To commune. To heal. And ultimately, to evolve.

100 Days of Wisdom: Wisdom Day 79 – In the midst of darkness, be the light!

Wisdom Day 79

Read about the 100 days of Wisdom™ Project by Tonya Marie

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“When tragedy strikes, our first human response is to react in anger and with rage in our hearts, to attempt to end such dark behavior by throwing more darkness at the problem. Yet our rational minds tell us that reacting with darkness in the form of hatred and madness simply expands and multiplies the darkness. The only answer to so much darkness is to bring light. As Saint Francis of Assisi reminded us, ‘Where there is darkness, let me bring light.’”

Wayne Dyer’s Weekly Wisdom (10/29/2013)

From the moment we wake up until the moment we close our eyes at night (or pass out from sheer exhaustion), it seems we’re being barraged by negativity and darkness sometimes. And if we’re not careful it’s easy to succumb to the mis-perception that darkness is winning over light.

On the global scale, there’s the financial crisis, the pompous political posturing and Congressional craziness, the saber-rattling and wars, hunger, natural disasters of epic proportion and incurable disease. And on a personal scale, physical and emotional stress, maladies of all kinds (and the treatments that sometimes cause even worse side effects), loss of loved ones, unemployment, loneliness, depression and disconnection. It’s enough to make you scream “stop the world … I wanna get off!!”

But as I say in my poem A Villager Speaks, and often quote on this site, “[u]ntil you take your last breath you will always have time to return to your place of origin and begin again.” Sometimes beginning again means having the courage to be certain in the midst of doubt, to be positive in the face of discouragement, to believe and have faith even (and especially) when all the evidence we experience with our senses says we should throw in the towel and quit.

Rest if you must …. but don’t you quit!

Staying positive and being the light in the midst of darkness, doubt and defeat is a tall order sometimes. A close, life-long friend’s struggle in the fight of her life against triple negative breast cancer that has metastasized is an ever-present and all too real case in point. But when life looks bleak, it’s more important than ever to focus on the moment, on the now. And to re-charge, re-focus, renew and SHINE! It may be cliché, but that doesn’t make it untrue: “It’s ALWAYS darkest before the dawn.”

Need some action items to turn this ideal into a reality? Here are some tips to stay positive and be “the light”.

10 Ways to Defend Yourself Against Negativity

Train Yourself to be More Positive in Five Steps (TinyBuddha.com – Simple wisdom for complex lives)

Tips for Overcoming Depression (Dr. Oz)

Listen with Your Heart: Talking with Someone Who Has Cancer (American Cancer Society)

Be well … & WISE! Tonya Marie

Post Script: This post is in honor of a person..just me @B_Still_today who checked in recently to ask what happened to my 100 Days of Wisdom project. I am excited to jump back into my regular inspirational/spiritual blogging. Because although I needed a moment to rest … I did not quit!

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Wisdom in the Whisper™ and WisdomintheWhisper.com by Tonya Marie is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at www.wisdominthewhisper.com.

100 Days of Wisdom: Wisdom Day 50 – Use Your Imagination Today and Watch Your Future Unfold

Wisdom Day 50

Read about the 100 days of Wisdom™ Project by Tonya Marie

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“Imagine the future you would like to see unfold.”

~ Barbara Marx Hubbard ~

Imagination is a powerful force. It’s the power to see things as they are before they actually are. Imagination is about using your creative capacity to dream while you are awake, literally. When you access our imagination to dream and really begin to feel as if you already have it, you connect your head space with your heart space to give life to your hearts desires.

We use the words, sounds , images and feelings in our waking dream to create the very objects in our mind; to nurture the unseen until it manifests into something tangible we can actually “see” and experience.

To be sure, what you have your mind focused on with consistent attention and intention has its mind focused on you. You aren’t what you think you are; you ARE what you think. This, the spiritual law of attraction is, at its essence, the idea that we are constantly in the process of co-creating our reality with the One in whose image and likeness we were created.

What you are experiencing today is a manifestation of the creative seeds sown in your past — good, bad or otherwise. And, of course, as Les Brown says:

“If you want to keep getting what you’re getting, keep doing what you’re doing.”