Tag: strength

Time To Simmer

Published on by Kimberly Novak1 Comment

A friend of mine recently visited The Butterfly House and was  lucky enough to release some butterflies.  After taking the lid off the container she gently slid in her finger.  The butterfly perched on the tip, as she extended her hand to set it free she said “enjoy your 21 days”.

It got me thinking….Did that butterfly set out with a plan?  What will be important over the next 21 days?  Will she live out her dreams?    Imagine if we only had 21 days.  What would our plans be?  The butterfly has no idea that it only has 21 days, just as we have no idea what our life span will be.

People spend a lot of time worrying about the next day.  When we leave work we are already concerned about what our day will be like tomorrow.  Children leaving school worry about tests the next day.  As we are driving home from work we are stressed over what traffic may be like.   Then there are the evening worries…will I get everything done so I can get a decent nights sleep and wake up and do it all over again?  That is life for most of us.  Are we making the most out of our lives?

If the butterfly worried day after day about what was going to happen next she wouldn’t have much of a life in that short 21 day span.  All of the strength she gained while in the cocoon would be wasted.  Instead, she set’s out on a course of discovery.  Fluttering around from flower to flower, embracing her life and the time she has.  Imagine what could happen if we embraced life.

I’m not one to talk, I’ve spent a lot of my life in the worry stage, but I”m also realizing that I am much happier if I make the choice to embrace life rather than worry about it.  Recently I was stuck on the side of the highway with a flat tire.  A natural response for most after hearing the POP is to immediately get angry.  I heard the sound, looked up and noticed how blue the sky was; sun was shining; it was a beautiful day…I chose to embrace it.  After calling work; calling for roadside assistance; I rolled down the windows, opened the sunroof and enjoyed looking up at the brilliantly blue sky.  I had 40 minutes to enjoy.  I was also blessed with an hour and a half walk around town while waiting for the tire to be fixed.  My responses set the course for the rest of my day.  Anger would’ve turned to stress, which would’ve brought on physical symptoms and so on.

Living life as if we only had 21 days could be kind of exciting!  It forces one to make the best of every moment no matter if it’s a good or bad one.  The bad days are the ones that make us stronger.  When I told a friend about my flat tire experience the first reaction was negative, she was upset for me!  I just smiled because I knew I had made the best of that incident.  I know it sounds silly, but I did feel like I gained just a little more strength that day.

It was a start to conditioning myself to see the good in the bad.  Yes I had a flat, but I also had time to enjoy the nice day that I never would have allowed myself.  I was given a few hours to simmer.

It takes 21 days for a butterfly to soar to the greatest heights it can.  In that short time the glasswing carries up to 40 times it’s weight and is the strongest, but most delicate, of the species.  What do we need to do to be the strongest we can be?  Similarly for us it takes 21 days to change or create a habit.  Kind of like we get a chance to reboot if we are stuck in a bad habit or strengthen by creating a positive one.  

I’ve begun my reboot and I’m confident that once I’m past my 21 days, I will have more strength to soar to the next.   Life’s obstacles are just stepping-stones of strength that will carry us on to another bad day.

How will you spend your next 21 days?……..Comment below on how you have  changed.

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

9/16/12

 

Related Articles/Blogs:

Day one of 21 days

21 days to health eating habits

How to remain positive in adverse situations

Smile feel happy

Positivity Challenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unplanned Opportunities

Published on by Kimberly Novak1 Comment

Plan:  a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something

We all have them.  We’ve spent countless hours determining the order they should go.  Some have spent thousands of dollars just to get themselves to a point in which they can carry them out.  What is the reaction when our plans are interrupted?  Those of us who have faced the loss of a relationship know all to well the answer to that question.  We tend to shut down.

When plans are interrupted, not by our choice, it can make one a little cranky!  The trick is to try to respond to life’s pause with love.  It is not easy to see the good in the midst of the bad, but trust me it is there.  At first it will seem like life as you knew it is gone. Only because life has changed the plans for you.  Adapting to change is one of the hardest things anyone can go through.  I’ve heard that the fear of “change” is one of the things people fear the most.  It beats out heights, spiders, plane crashes, and even skydiving.

Believe me it is easy to let yourself slip into the why’s and what if’s when dealing with loss.  Imagine how different life would be if instead we rose to the height of creativity when facing shattered plans.   Using creativity as fuel to propel yourself forward in life can bring so many opportunities.   A journal, for example, is a very creative way to begin to heal.  Other’s have found solace in crafts, cooking, and photography.  There are several celebrities who rose to great heights because they overcame  shattered plans and flourished in their adversity.  Just to name a few, Oprah, J.K. Rowling, Vincent Van Gogh, Bethany Hamilton, and Michael Jordan.   Each of them had gone through and survived a loss which made them who they are today.

Famous our not, we can all react in a way that will help us to achieve our version of greatness.  It is important that we do not become afraid of making new plans and doing our best to carry them out.  But we also have to remember that even though we have our plans, God has his too.   I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of thinking I was in complete control of what I had been planning.  There are several outside influences that will dictate how our plans are carried out.  My marriage for instance was not just in my hands but also in the hands of my ex.  We cannot always count on the fact that what we have plotted out to happen will go exactly the way we want it.

So we have to train ourselves to react to life’s interruptions.  I have begun to train myself with faith, hope and love.  Having faith within to be able to rise to the challenge.  The hope that the new proposal for life will see itself through.  Loving to the point of throwing self-doubt out the window.  If we can face each unplanned opportunity with these three attributes I am confident our new life will be full of wonderful surprises!

How have you faced an unplanned opportunity?  Please share.

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

7/22/12

Love Is…….

Published on by Kimberly Novak4 Comments

There are so many different ways to finish the thought Love Is…. and today I heard a song that really filled in those blanks for me.  This is probably one of the topics where I could sit and blog for hours on so many different points.  Tonight I just want to focus on how I felt when I heard some of the lyrics.   (You will find a link to the song at the bottom of this post.)

Sometimes love will make you cry.   Recently, my journey has brought on an unpleasant challenge.  Surprisingly  the first thing I struggled with was the fact that I still wanted to go to my ex for comfort.  Here I am after all of the time, heartache, disappointment, resentment, and pain still wanting to share important life changing moments with him.  I have had to share some instances with him that concerned the kids, but this time was different, because it concerned only me.  To tell you the truth I really didn’t know what I wanted or needed from him, it was just the fact that I was so used to sharing important things with him for so long. I was not ready to break that cycle; until now.  When I heard the lyrics “Sometimes love will make you cry” I knew that it is time to move past that urge of calling on him in a crisis.  This is something that I didn’t know still needed work and realizing it was step one. I will always carry some kind of love in my heart for the person I spent half of my life with.  Learning how to put that love behind me is step two.

Love will change your life.  This spoke to me on so many different levels.  There are so many forms of love that can change your life.  For instance the fact that I love my job!  I never thought I would end up where I am.  I am so grateful and blessed to have all of the people who were brought into my life because of it. Love won’t leave you empty.  The love from my church and Sister’s In Christ.  I cannot even begin to describe how my faith has blossomed because of the love I receive from all of those special people.  These instances all involved Love and they in fact have changed my life.

Love can heal you if you let it inside.  My absolute favorite lyric!   So many people are afraid to let love back in once they have gone through a heart-break.  I did not think it would be something that I would willingly do.  I say willing because it is definitely something that I wanted; but would I be able to let it happen?  Even letting in strong friendships was a scary thought for me because I also lost my best friend in the divorce.  Luckily, I did not struggle with my decision for very long.  I have begun to allow some of those feelings happen for me again.  It has been extremely healing for me.  Scary – yes!  but the amount of happiness that feeling like that again has brought into my life, far outweighs anything that is scary about it.

Remember, love’s not easy….but it’s worth it.  Worth it, as are most things in life that are not easy.  As survivors we have to love ourselves enough to allow those feelings back into our lives.  It will take confidence to be willing to allow it to happen.  Imagine the caterpillar in the chrysalis finally realizing that she/he is worth it; the chrysalis breaks and she/he is free to fly.  We can have that same experience and how beautiful it is!

Love can hear you, I know love will heal you….. Are you allowing Love back into your life?  Please share.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO65vqbkG_0

Kimberly

Courageous Butterfly

7/10/12