I just want to shout “Thank you” to the Creator for creating me in His own image. That makes me a co-creator in creation and endows me with the capacity to create my own reality. With all the possibilities of creatures in creation to be assigned, I was chosen to be a human. I was blessed with a mind that has the power to imagine, visualize, and create any reality I choose. All I have to do is to learn how to use this powerful tool properly. In the past I and many people I know have used this powerful tool incorrectly by focusing on what we “DON’T want” instead of what we DO WANT! We think about it, talk about it, complain about it, worry about it, justify it and do everything but CHANGE it!

The ability to create is an awesome and powerful gift and responsibility!!!! How can I not be overflowing with gratitude?  I can choose to wake up each day and follow my bliss or I can let my body, the environment, or time or television dictate how I will view and respond to my day.  In 2015, I’m taking charge of this gift of creativity that the Creator has so bountifully blessed me and each and every one of us with. I am reminded of a quote from the Bahai Writings.

“Dost thou consider thyself of puny form, when the universe is folded within thee?”  And, “Regard man a mine rich in gems of inestimable value.”

We are all part of a miraculous creation. It’s nothing short of magical when we think about what’s going on inside of us without our conscious attention. Consider just a minuscule snapshot of your marvelous creation taken from the book 20/20 Thinking by Maggie Greenwood-Robinson.

1. While in the womb, a human baby can develop more than 100,000 neurons in just one minute.
2. Brain messages travel at speeds of up to 360 miles per hour.
3. Nearly 100 million pieces of data race up your spinal cord every minute.
4. Every minute, about 1 quart of blood flows through your brain and nearly 85% of your brain’s weight is water!
5. The human nervous system has 100 billion neurons, roughly the amount of stars in the Milky Way and these 100 billion neurons are surrounded by 10 trillion synapses.
6. Your short term memory holds information for no more than a few seconds and can store no more than nine pieces of information.
7. Your long term memory has stored more information than a million encyclopedias by the time you are eight years old where it can stay for weeks, years, or forever! (Source: 20/20 Thinking )

I hope I’ve convinced you of how magnificent you are? You don’t have to worry about respiration, perspiration, digestion, or breathing. All of these vital functions are being taken care of for you so that you can use your conscious mind to scan the universe, to find a need, and then fill it by creating a solution.  That’s life! That’s what gives meaning to life. And, that’s why we have the gift of creation.

Barbara

“Getting over a painful experience is much like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” -C.S. Lewis   

Whether your current moment is merry or miserable, you must let go of it if you are to move on to the next.   The miserable moments are only miserable when we label them that way. The merry moments are only that way because we decided that they were merry.  This morning I was reflecting on past Decembers and the changes that have occurred in the last few years.  There have been so many.  For one, there were people in my life last year that are gone this year.  Three years ago at this time, we were mourning my nephew’s tragic and untimely demise at age 32.  Everyone was wishing that they’d spent more time with him or that they had said and done things to let him know how much he was loved while he was there.  Last year it is my husbands father and two years ago, it was my step-mother. She lived to be 85-years old.  This morning I was reflecting on how she did not spend the holidays with us that last year before she passed.  There were many reasons, but mainly our collective somber mood and the weather.  Little did I know that we would not have another opportunity.

“It’s not life’s big planned events that make the big difference, it is the simple, intimate, and sometimes spontaneous things we do for each other.” Barbara Talley

While there has been significant losses, at the same time there has been significant gain.  I am not the same person I was last year or the year before. I’ve been tested by trials and as they say, “The tree most pruned bears the best fruit.”  Two years this time of year, there was a fear and hopelessness that has now been replaced by faith and expectation. Last year thing got better.

This year, I have experienced a transformation that is still going on. Life is exciting! My dreams are coming true!  I see the world differently because I am learning to see the world differently.  Some of the same things are there, but I’ve changed the way I look at the word.

“When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

2015 is going to be the best yet. I’ve been cleaning house the past two years. Some relationships have changed. Now, I have new relationships, new opportunities, and a new sense of valuing life’s little things, like my two newest grand-babies.  Sometimes when trying to get the BIG things, we miss out on the little things right before us. I am better, mainly because I chose to be better. I’m learning so many new things about the brain and how to change reality. I know from my more than a half century of living that we must seize every moment.  We don’t love, laugh, and enrich the world in the past or the present, we do it ONLY in the current moment.  So seize it.  I sure plan to!

I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.  To find out more about me check out: What Does Barbara Do? or visit  my website.
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This morning when I checked my email I found the following from a friend. It was titled, “Absolutely PRICELESS!”

This life is a blessing, a wonderful, awesome journey of discovery. Lessons and blessings are around every corner. The biggest challenge is to stay focused on our divinely inspired mission while making a living.

Sometimes though, I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster for the past few decades, raising six kids, running a business, and performing service work. Life seems to be moving at a faster pace. Of late though, so much is happening so fast that I feel like I am mostly reacting to life instead of responding to my calling, but maybe that’s how it is when you finally getting close to your own flow.  Life will pull you in many directions to teach you lessons. Once you learn those lessons, you must have courage and the diligence to get back on or to stay the course.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
― Steve Jobs

“Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful… that’s what matters to me.”
― Steve Jobs

I’ve learned on my journey that people will try to convince me to use my positive and powerful energy to fuel THEIR dreams which leaves little or no energy for my own. I have been experiencing some cognitive dissonance of late because my mind KNOWS what to do, but I have not had the courage to limit the distractions from keeping me from doing what I know I was put here to do. Specifically, I am seriously reflecting on the Bahai quote about my calling.  You see, when you are capable of doing so many different things, it takes courage to say no and just focus on the “most important thing!” For example, I’ve been dissipating my energy on different money making strategies while my heart is calling to me to focus on my specific gifts and talents and to trust! If we ever want to become our “best”, we’ve got to trust that we can earn a living by our calling!

The best of men are they that earn a livelihood by their calling and spend upon themselves and upon their kindred for the love of God, the Lord of all worlds. (Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, Persian 82)

Don’t get me wrong now. I am loving life because I am growing mentally and spiritually by leaps and bounds. It is important however for me to take time out and reflect on my calling. You too must make the time to find out why you are here on the planet. Each of us is a gift to the planet, a piece of the puzzle, a dot that allows the picture to be complete. We are each here for a reason and when we strive to figure out what that thing is, our lives transform. The Holy Bible speaks of our calling (vocation) and teaches us of the attitude of lowliness, meekness, and love that must accompany it. I have to ask myself, “Am I worthy of the vocation for which I have been called?”  If so, what am I doing about it? And a good question to ask to test if you are doing the right work is to ask, “Does my current work allow me to succeed if I choose to be humble, meek, peaceful and loving OR does it demand other more materialistic traits?

1 I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, 2With all lowliness and meekness, with long suffering, forbearing one another in love; 3 Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1

“When the student is ready, the teacher appears” seems apropos to explaining my ongoing and continuous transformation. I am in awe that I have learned so much over the past year that I am almost not the same person I was a year ago.  You may not notice that much by looking at the physical, but the mental and the spiritual are flying. Some of that can be attributed to my accumulated wisdom, but a lot has been from the marrying of science and spirit, learning about my brain and how it works and understanding the “why’s” of life. Learning scientifically what prayer, meditation, faith, and belief do to the body and mind.  It’s like I was collecting puzzle pieces all my life and now they are finally fitting together.  Like Steve Jobs would say, “Trust that the dots will connect.”  In my life, the dots are connecting.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
― Steve Jobs

Perhaps it was my time or the reflection that one naturally goes through when they reach a certain age or stage of life. For me, I am have several major milestones at hand, one of reaching 60 and the other of getting close to seeing my last daughter preparing for college next year. Reaching another decade challenged me to re-evaluate at my life, my goals, and MY CALLING! In addition, I consciously put some goals on hold decades ago so that I could concentrate on my most important role of being a mother. I’m nearing completion of that most important sacred task. So now I have to re-evaluate if those long stagnant goals are still what I want to do.  Pray for me as I pray for you.

Barbara