Your Standing Place
"Do not lose hold of your dreams, or aspirations. For if you do, you may exist but cease to live. "- Henry David Thoreau
This weekend my husband Ed and I traveled a bit further to Phoenix to attend yet another inspiring workshop. As timing of some things worked out we have found ourselves submerged over the course of the last 10 days in not only two dynamic workshops but in the subsequent planning, dreaming and inspiration about what our future holds for us that came with it all. It has energized us as individuals and as a couple. It has been really quite awesome. My gratitude and thanks goes out to my loving husband for opening his mind, spirit and heart in such a wonderful and empowering way.
Our inner landscape makes us so much of who and what we do. Sometimes in getting caught up in the day-to-day stuff, we lose sight of what we were meant to do on this planet. Taking time out to reconnect and remember our focus can be so important. Leaving the past in the past can help us to insure a brighter future. Finding a way to reenergize and reconnect with our purpose (I do believe we each have one) can be life-changing especially if you are finding yourself being stuck and unable to move forward in ways that fill your heart and soul.
These many days of stretching and learning has left me wide open to the vast possibilities that we have each and every day - if we choose. This morning while putting some things up on a bookshelf I came across a little hardcover book I have sitting on one of my shelves. I have not paid attention to its existence in some time. Perhaps it is this new sense of enlightenment in my being this morning that drew my to it in the hours before dawn.
The book is from my great Aunt Ruth's collection of inspirational books. This little hard cover Funk and Wagnall book is entitled, Personality How to Build It, by H. Laurant, with a Copyright of 1915. I would love to share with you the first two paragraphs that called out to me this morning.
Personality is defined as the qualities or characteristics, personal traits or attributes peculiar to some individual. Specifically, it is that quality which sustains poise through self-control in the face of propitious or unpropitious circumstances.
The man who is calm and cool, who is master of his actions, of his voice, of his looks, and his gestures is he who commands his true self and can assert that individuality which is respected everywhere as the root of all this is sincere, just, and good. Personalities are not acquired by dreaming but by hard work. Self-help is the hammer with which they may be forged on the anvil of Life, each mind following its own method.
"Give me a standing place," said Archimedes, "and I will move the world," but it was the immortal Goethe who changed the postulate into the precept - "Make good thy standing-place, and move the world!"
I don't know about you, but this Monday morning the idea really resonates of having my own special standing place to orchestrate the world that I will participate in during the days and week ahead. If you would like more reading for this morning - more foods for thought I invite you to read this month's issue of Victory Woman Magazine. There are some articles guaranteed to get you thinking and assisting you in finding your standing place!
P.S. This week's picture is from out trip to pheonix, the beautiful flower is in quite a contrast from our frozen tundra here in Colorado this morning. It is the contrast however that makes life interesting!
P.S.S. The word propitious, which I had to look up, means favorable and likely to lead to success.
