6 Powerful Truths to Start Telling Yourself

6 Powerful Truths to Start Telling Yourself

by Therese Schwenkler

“Imperfection is beauty, madness is genius and it’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring.”
―Marilyn Monroe

YOU, my friend, are undeniably, unquestionably, extraordinarily amazing and powerful!
Have you forgotten this already?
In case you’re stuck in a moment of temporary confusion, allow me to remind you of some truths you need to start telling yourself more often…

1.  “I do not have to settle.”

Oh, how I love your fierceness, your undying drive, the sheer wildcat intensity with which you slink through the jungle like a creature of passion – a passion that lights you up and that rises from the center of your calmest, deepest, most grounded self.
I so love it how you refuse to settle – for less than your best, for less than you deserve, for less than what it is you were made to be and to have and to do.
You won’t settle for the work that makes you a living, without also balancing in a life that’s worth living.  You won’t settle for the man or woman who keeps you warm at night, but who can’t see his or her way into the depths of your soul or the breadth of your heart.  You won’t settle for giving less than everything to your work, to your play, to your loves, to your life.
In fact, if there’s one thing you will settle into in this lifetime, it’s the belief that the greatest risk is never to risk at all.  And oh, how you’re willing to dare greatly – for passion, for connection, for the adventure of being alive.
I absolutely love it, you powerful, non-settling soul, you!

2.  “I have great reasons to trust myself and the universe.”

You’ve come a far way – from listening to the expectations and the outer shoutings of the crowds, to learning to listen to your own inner compass and your own inner voice.
You know now that the first person to check in with, always, is your deepest, truest self, and she has never let you down.  She knows when to say, “Yes please” and when to say “Heck no!”, when to lean in and when to let go.  She knows when to strike hard, when to back off, and when to slow down and breathe.
In every instant, she knows exactly what you need and exactly what to do.
And you’ve learned to trust her.
But you’ve learned to trust others too.  You know in whom to place your trust and how to let others in fully, deeply… completely.  You’ve learned it can be safe to open and let yourself be seen and heard and loved for the magnificent person you are.
Lastly, you’ve learned to trust in this crazy nest-of-a-universe that holds you and to fully rest in its inevitable care.  Storms will come in this lifetime, you know, but with time the rain and the rage and the shaking wind will subside into tranquility, and even the hardest of winters will soften into spring.
With everything inside you, without a fragment of doubt, you know this to be true.
Yes, I love the way that you’ve learned to trust – wholeheartedly, fiercely, deeply – in yourself, in others, and in the universe that holds you.

3.  “My weirdness is one of my greatest strengths.”

That’s right; you got it: You are powerful because you’re such an unrivalled weirdo.
I love all those weird little things about you – the way you snort when you laugh, the way you rock those glasses with style, and how you shake it out on the dance floor like no one else is judging you.
I love the way you show up in the world: unapologetically, eccentric-ly, wholly yourself, because who you are is the one and only YOU.
I love your individuality.  Please say you’ll never stop showing the world who YOU are.

4.  “I can continue to let my struggles open me, and not close me.”

On the days you were betrayed – not once, not twice, but again and again and again – you still vowed to keep your heart open anyway.
You were mistreated, but you learned to love others anyway.
Life sucked sometimes, but you didn’t let it suck the life out of you.
Instead of closing, you opened.
Instead of hardening, you softened.
And when life hit you hard, you chose not to die, but to let yourself be born again.
You’ve chosen love over hate, compassion over indifference, and transformation over ruin.  You are blossoming more and more every day, and I couldn’t be more proud of you.

5.  “I am still here learning and trying, even after all my failures.”

The truly beautiful thing about you is the way you never let your failures get you down – at least, not for long.
Remember that time you fell face down in the mud?
You came back stronger than before.  You remembered that, as the proverb goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and that, as Epictetus would say, “No great thing is created suddenly.”
You let your “failures” carve out your person like the insides of a canyon wall, creating something majestic and wondrous and breathtakingly beautiful.  Instead of succumbing, you let them forge you into a person of strength and of character, humility and grace.
You aren’t one to be stopped – oh no, not you.  You may have had failures in one sense of the word, but in another sense, you’ve always won.  You’ve won because you failed to give up and you failed to give in.  You kept rowing, reinventing, learning from your defeats and pushing harder each time.  Your ability to persevere astounds me, and you do it with grace every time.
You, my friend, are stronger than you know.

6.  “I am powerful simply because I am ALIVE right now.”

You, Sweet Honey Child, are worthy and valuable and mighty beyond measure simply because you were born into this world – simply because you breathe – simply because you are right here, right now.
You were IT from the very instant you were born into this weird, unfathomable, joyful and painful experience called “life”:  Worthy.  Valuable.  Magnificent.  Infinitely loved.
You were IT at your highest.  You were IT at your lowest.  You still are IT.  You are simply, purely, unquestionably, unconditionally, a ridiculously powerful human being.
It doesn’t matter who you are to others or whether you believe this to be true.  It doesn’t matter what you look like, where you live, or what you’ve done in the past.  It doesn’t matter what anybody else tells you (or what you tell yourself, for that matter).  Look me in the eyes, Wonder Woman/Superman.  You are the song in my heart, the whisper on my lips.  The reason life has meaning.

You are IT!

http://www.marcandangel.com/2013/08/27/6-powerful-truths-to-start-telling-yourself/

Rick Warren - Rick Warren's message about GOD

Rick Warren's message about GOD

Hi, dear all,

May you all be blessed today and forever......

 

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren,  'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California . In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:   People ask me, What is the purpose of life?   And I respond:    In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.   One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me.  I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity..  We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.   Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.   We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer.   I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.  Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.   And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems:   If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.   We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.   You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.  Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.   First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases.  Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church..  Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.   Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.   We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity?   Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?   When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do.   That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.   Happy moments, PRAISE GOD.  Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.   Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.   Painful moments, TRUST GOD.   Every moment, THANK GOD..   If you do not pass it on, nothing will happen. But it will just be nice to pass it on to a friend....just like I have done.   God's Blessings HE ARRIVED THIS MORNING, WE HAD PRAYER; SPENT SOME TIME JUST TALKING, AND HE HELD ME FOR AWHILE BECAUSE I WAS HAVING A BAD MORNING.. THEN, HE WAS ON HIS WAY TO YOUR PLACE. AMEN     "I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by It" - Dr. Maya Angelou

The back pew

 

The back pew

---

A pastor's wife was expecting a baby, so he stood before 
the congregation and asked for a raise.

After much discussion, they passed a rule that whenever the pastor's family expanded; so would his paycheck.

After 6 children, this started to get expensive and the congregation decided to hold another meeting to discuss the 
pastor's expanding salary.

A great deal of yelling and inner bickering ensued, as to how much the pastor's additional children were costing the church, and how much more it could potentially cost.

After listening to them for about an hour, the pastor rose 
from his chair and spoke, "Children are a gift from God, and we will take as many gifts as He gives us.
" Silence fell over the congregation.

In the back pew, a little old lady struggled to stand, and finally said in her frail voice,
"Rain is also a gift from God, but when we get too much of it, we wear rubbers."

The entire congregation said, "Amen."

Gotta love those senior citizens

 

Afghan Women’s Powerful Poetry – Even Amidst War

Afghan Women’s Powerful Poetry – Even Amidst War

Leigh Cuen   /   Jul 7th, 2013

Despite constant dangers, Afghan women’s poetry continues to flourish. One outlet for women’s poetry is Mirman Baheer, Afghanistan’s largest literary society for women. Mirman Baheer operates in Kabul with over 100 members. Its members are generally educated and employed; they are professors, parliamentarians, journalists and scholars.

Approximately 300 of Miram Baheer’s members live in the outlying provinces — Khost, Paktia, Maidan Wardak, Kunduz, Kandahar, Herat and Farah — where the group functions in secret. Many who cannot safely travel to meet together listen to radio programs broadcast by Mirman Baheer and the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

“We recruit only through word-of-mouth and delete any content that might be used to identify our writers,” says Richelle McClain, director of the Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

The Afghan Women’s Writing Project (AWWP) was founded in 2009. Today, 160 Afghan women across five provinces are enrolled in AWWP’s workshops, including a new workshop for teenagers and a Dari writing program. While security is an omnipresent concern, dwindling financial support is one of their greatest challenges. “We just lost 75 percent of our funding because of the U.S. withdrawal,” says McClain.

In addition to radio broadcasts and writing programs, the AWWP collects oral stories from illiterate Afghan women, which are edited and published on the organization’s blog.

Before the 2014 elections in Afghanistan, the AWWP plans to partner with IFES Afghanistan (International Foundation for Electoral Systems) to promote political writings by local women through digital, print, and radio networks. They will also run special broadcasts featuring interviews with female candidates and programs about how election results will impact Afghan citizens.

For many rural women in Afghanistan, these secret networks and the poetry broadcasts are their only form of education. U.N. investigations revealed that only 12 percent of Afghan women are literate.

But, thanks to volunteer translators and journalists, contemporary Afghan women’s poetry can now reach global audiences. For example, the June 2013 issue of Poetry magazine was dedicated to landays – vitriolic, two-line verses traditionally recited by Afghan women at the river, the well, or private gatherings.

This collection came from years of investigative reporting by journalist Eliza Griswold. She journeyed to Afghanistan with photographer and filmmaker Seamus Murphy. On July 30, 2013 the Pulitzer Center will host “I Am the Beggar of the World,” a presentation of Griswald and Murphy’s work at the Culture Project in New York City.

A free exhibit at the Poetry Foundation Gallery in Chicago, Shame Every Rose: Images of Afghanistan, features many of these landays and images. The exhibit is open to the public through August.

“Sharing this poetry could endanger the poets’ lives,” says Don Share, editor of Poetry magazine. “Still, they gave these poems willingly.”

The tradition of landays provides some level of anonymity for women because they are collective. They are recited and shared rather than attributed to a single poet. Even so, in modern Afghanistan, poetry can be dangerous. Over the past year, several young Afghan poets were killed by their male relatives. A young Mirman Baheer member who called herself Rahila Muska burned herself to death in protest after her brothers found her writing poetry and brutally attacked her. Her real name was Zarmina. She often recited this landay over the phone to members of Miram Baheer:

“You sold me to an old man, Father.

May God destroy your home, I was your daughter.”

Landays derive their power from shrewd layers of tension between the poet’s inner and outer world. They can explore rage, sarcasm, irony, loss, separation and desire. Many of the poems are humorous, filled with bawdy sexual imagery.

Whatever the subject, a landay lilts from word to word in a short lullaby with scathing, layered meaning. These poems come from a long legacy of Afghan women’s literature.

“The Afghan woman poet predates the American or European female poet,” says Zohra Saed, an Afghan-American poet living in New York City. “Consider the poet queen Rabia Balkhi.” Legend has it this 11th century Afghan used her last drop of blood to write poems.

“Afghan women’s poetry is unique because it must respond to create change,” says Saed. “Within our communities and also to change outside perceptions. It is the poetry of witness, of trauma, of memory and of struggle to be seen as individuals.”

Saed recounted the time she edited a collection of literature by Afghan writers around the world. Before it was finished, an American radio station published a CD of the collection without her permission. They listed her as the editor and printed a photograph of an impoverished child on the cover.

“When people are interested in Afghan women’s poetry, it is presented as poetry by the same women the world has imagined rescuing over the past 20 years,” Saed says.

She took legal action to recall the copyrighted anthology, then focused it exclusively on Afghan-American writers. “There were also women poets who were not part of the war,” she says. “Writers raised abroad, their aesthetics and poetic voice is very different.”

Today, Afghan literature is fragmented by linguistic, cultural and geographic divides. Some of the world’s most prominent Afghan writers live outside their fatherland and write in English. Many female writers in Afghanistan come from the urban elite, often educated in western universities. Poems by women in rural Afghanistan are rarely published. Groups like the Afghan Women’s Writing Project and the Poetry Foundation are working to bridge this divide.

“Poetry is not only for the classroom and elite art circles,” says Share, editor of Poetry magazine. “Poetry is an essential part of life, the only way these women can share their experiences. These poems are electrifying and relevant.” He hopes readers will realize that, even in the digital age, poetry can wield tangible power.

Photos Courtesy of The Poetry Foundation (top, second, and last) and The Afghan Women’s Writing Project (Workshop photos by Cheney Orr, Blue Burqa by Heidi Levine).

http://dowser.org/afghan-womens-powerful-poetry-even-amidst-war/