All The Kings Horses has received the most votes and highest ratings and will be the featured post in the eBook. If you haven’t had the chance to read it make sure you check it out.
Watch for updates on this as I may ask for more reader responses as I put the eBook together.
New post coming later tonight, HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all Mom’s and Mom’s to be!
Kimberly
Courageous Butterfly
5/13/12
In nature we know that the calm before the storm is when the trees become still, the birds are quiet and the colors in the sky become ominous. I have to say that the animals are very lucky that they know how to see that calm and can then prepare for the storm. The bad news for us humans is that we don’t notice that calm until we are in the midst of our storm.
Not to long ago I wrote a post about how important it is to try to see the beauty that is hidden within your storm and the fact that once you make it through you will be better for it; you will grow stronger through that trial. So how can we sense that we are in a calm before the storm? Some people may say “my life is going too well something bad is going to happen”. Or the famous “it’s too good to be true, so something bad must come of it”. The truth is we don’t see that we were in the calm until the storm happens. Just tonight I had a close friend say “I hope this storm passes quick I have been pretty stress free for a few weeks”. We don’t have a doppler system for the storms of life so how do we embrace our calm if we are seeing it only when the storm hits?
I’m sure you can think back to a really good day or a time when you thought to yourself “wow things are going really well for me”. We need to pay attention to those moments and take inventory on how we are feeling. Pay attention to your outlook on life, energy level and overall happiness. Then, be in tune to the impact those feelings are having on you in that moment. Maybe they are causing you to be successful in a project you are working on or maybe they just helped you brighten someone’s day. No matter how large or small the success is make sure you note it! Place these feelings and moments of happiness and success in your emergency storm bag because they will become your tools for survival.
You’ve taken inventory on your best day you have those feelings and moments in your mind and all of a sudden your sky opens and your storm hits. Stress is being piled on you from every angle. Be it work, a relationship, kids or anything that can cause you stress, it’s all hitting you at once. What do you do? You reach out for your tools. You remember how you felt when things were going well in your life and you focus on those feelings and ask yourself “what do I need to do in order to feel like that again?” If you take just a moment to look back you will quickly realize you would much rather have the feelings of happiness and success rather than the feelings the stress is causing you to have. Now I know you can’t just close your eyes and make your problems disappear. It would be awesome but it’s not going to happen. You will still have to deal with whatever the issue is but use your tools while you are dealing with it. Remind yourself that you are strong enough to find a solution to your problem and release the stress. Encourage yourself to work through whatever it is and get yourself back to the feelings you had when you were in your calm. We can’t know how long our storm will last but we can use our tools to help bring us out and back to our calm.
The last couple of years have been a pretty big storm but I did have some good days thrown in there. I will now look back on those days and pull the tools out of my emergency bag whenever a storm hits.
Would anyone like to offer any suggestions to my blog reader’s on how you were successful in working through a stressful time, we could all use helpful tips! (respond in the comments)
Kimberly
Courageous Butterfly
5/8/12
I was stopped at a red light today and had the pleasure of watching a black bird dodging cars while trying to get to a bag full of crackers someone had tossed out into the road. As I sat for that brief moment I thought “wow that takes guts!” I watched the bird sitting patiently on the curbside waiting for each car to pass then it would leap out into the street only to be forced to retreat back to safety before reaching its goal. Sound familiar?
I think we can all relate to being in that same situation. Life get’s tough and when it does our natural instinct is to pull ourselves back to a place where we feel safe and secure. The black bird was not giving up. I was only able to watch for a few minutes but in that time the little gal/guy tried to reach those crackers at least 10 times. I can probably bet that the goal was to reach the food on the first try, however it was not possible due to the many obstacles in its way. Those obstacles did not seem to bother the bird in any way, and I know had I been able to continue to watch I would’ve seen it finally persevere.
Fear can be a very scary word and in most cases I would generally try to steer clear of anything that caused me to feel fearful. I didn’t have that luxury when it came time to face what I was going through. Divorce was hard enough but I was dealing with more than one fear during my trial. Fear of my new living arrangements, fear of moving forward, and fear of letting go of what I once had. Every situation is different but for me I was not prepared or ready to say goodbye to that part of my life. That is a scary feeling and is felt in any type of loss. I was stuck and forced to face it all head on. I had to realize that what I had been fearing for many years was actually true and it was happening. What I didn’t know was how finally accepting that fear would make me stronger. I use the word accepting rather than facing because it was a situation I could not control, it was part of my life and I had to accept it. Just like the black bird had to accept the fact that its next meal was in that bag in the road and the only way to continue on with life was to finally get to it. I had to live through my fears in order to become who I am today.
Facing a fear is a bit different. For instance last year I faced a few fears. I went body surfing in the ocean and I cannot swim! I zip lined in Hawaii and I”m afraid of heights and then I decided to snorkel with real fish, again in the ocean. I had a lot of fun doing those things but did they make me a stronger person? Probably not but accepting my fears, living through them, and preserving is what made me stronger. We can all be that little black bird and instead of worrying about facing our fears we can make the choice to accept them and grow stronger through them.
It’s been two years since I first accepted fear and I am proud to say that in doing so I have become a much stronger person. I still have my moments of weakness but because I took that chance and let myself accept fear I know I can survive it. Afterall, it’s just a silly 4 letter word.
I’m going to steal this quote from the movie New Year’s Eve. ” What would YOU do today if you knew you were NOT going to fail? GO DO IT”.
Have you taken a Leap of Faith? Share your experience in the comment box.
Kimberly
Courageous Butterfly
5/3/12
Out of the Chrysalis 