Brenda Schinke

A dear colleague of mine said, "The key to Being in all relationships is the relationship that you have with yourself and recognizing that all other relationships are really simply a mirror for you."

The great news about this is that most of us are clear (at some level) that we REALLY can’t change another person AND we can do something about ourselves.

This requires a few simple questions:

1) What words would you describe when you have an ideal relationship with someone?

2) Using those same words are YOU that person on a daily basis?

3) Which of those words could you practice being to become your ideal person?

Until next time,
Brenda

I ran across this great column titled: “LIFE, ISN’T THIS GREAT”. It’s written by Regina Brett who is 90 years old (The Plain Dealer, Cleveland , Ohio):

"To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me. It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written."

My odometer rolled over to 90 in August, so here is the column once more:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and parents will. Stay in touch.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17 Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Over prepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone for everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s,we’d grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

42. The best is yet to come.

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift."

Until next time,
Brenda

Simple quotes take up so little space yet they say so much.

One of Carl Jung’s quotes “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” Another way I have heard this said is “When you point a finger at someone your other three fingers are pointing back at you.”

I have found the statements above to be frustrating albeit true. If I have upset with someone (I am now pointing a finger) and I look at what the upset is and how I played a role in the upset I see (three fingers pointing back at me) that my real upset is not with them but with myself. Usually, I find I could have done something different; said/and or not said something; or I had an unexpected expectation from that individual. What I mean by the last statement is I expected them to say or perform in a certain way; however, I never had that communication with them.

The great thing about this is that I have minimized my upset by being accountable for the situation.

1)    Think of a time (either current or past) where you have been in upset with someone.
2)    What did you believe they did to cause your upset?
3)    What will you do differently in the future?
4)    How do you feel differently about the situation?

Until Next Time,
Brenda

I came across this poem recently and wanted to share it with you:

Life is short
Break the rules
forgive quickly
kiss passionately, love truly
laugh constantly
And never stop smiling
no matter how strange life is
Life is not always the party we expected it to be
but as long as we are here, we should smile and be grateful

-Unknown

Until next time,
Brenda

I thought this article below was interesting - Ichak discusses the benefits of doing nothing:

The Benefits of Doing Nothing
By Ichak Kalderon Adizes, PhD.
www.adizes.com

Every day in the modern world poses an increasing number of problems and opportunities in our lives. There are so many existing and new oppor-threats, that we simply don’t have enough time to address them all. We are all busy, and if we slow down for even a second, we feel guilty because "there is so much to do."

But if you stop for an interval of time and do nothing, you might find it has its benefits.

Firstly, doing nothing gives you the time to reminisce; to review what you are doing and analyze whether or not you should continue doing it. You get to see the value, or the futility, of doing something or anything.

Doing nothing for a moment is like pulling yourself out of a picture, so that you can see the picture from a different perspective. We all know how difficult it is to see the picture when you are in it.

When you do nothing, you give yourself the opportunity to ask, "Is it time to change?"

Filling your time with something to do is a perfect escape from yourself, while doing nothing forces you, sometimes painfully, to face yourself and your concerns.

I have noticed an interesting phenomenon among people who ask for a divorce. I asked them, when did the idea germinate; when was the final decision to make a change "born?" It often happened when the person was on vacation or sick in bed with nothing to do. When you do nothing you give yourself a chance to review everything.

In the Hindu tradition, zero and infinity are related. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything.

Another benefit of doing nothing for an interval of time is that it provides space for creating something new. When your brain is fully engaged it is not available to be creative.

I have found an interesting common denominator among my entrepreneurial clients: When they were young, they were either sick for a long time or, for some other reason, they were alone with nothing to do.

Having nothing to do, they had to create something by themselves. Often they did lots of daydreaming, and over time, they developed their dream, which became their reality.

With nothing to do, they had the time to evaluate their past and make plans for the future.

Read the rest of the article here

Until next time,
Brenda

I receive Insight of the Day posts from www.insightoftheday.com

Here’s one I received last Friday:

Curing Victimitis
Source: www.insightoftheday.com

Watch your thoughts; they lead to attitudes.
Watch your attitudes; they lead to words.
Watch your words; they lead to actions.
Watch your actions; they lead to habits.
Watch your habits; they form your character.
Watch your character; it determines your destiny.

These words of unknown origin tell us that our silent and often subconscious choices shape our future. Every aspect of our lives, at home and at work, can be improved if we use our power to think, reflect, and make conscious choices about our thoughts, attitudes, words, actions, and habits.

Instead, many of us think of ourselves as victims. We complain about our circumstances and what others did to us. Whatever psychological comfort there is in feeling powerless and blameless when things aren’t going right, in the end, victims lead unsatisfied lives.

We’re most vulnerable to victimitis when we’re under the influence of powerful emotions like fear, insecurity, anger, frustration, grief, or depression. These feelings are so powerful, we believe our state of mind is inevitable. Our only hope is they will go away on their own. Yet it’s during times of emotional tumult that using our power to choose our thoughts and attitudes is most important. We can’t make pain go away, but we can refuse to suffer.

Even when we don’t like any of our choices, we do have some — once we realize we can take control. It isn’t easy, but what we do and how we choose to feel about ourselves has a profound impact on the quality of our lives. Victims may get sympathy for a while, but that isn’t enough.

Taking personal responsibility for our happiness and success can be scary, but the payoff is enormous. Although we can’t make our lives perfect, we can make them better — usually a lot better.

——————————————————————-

Subscribe to the Insight of the Day here:
www.insightoftheday.com

Until next time,

Brenda

I received a beautiful blanket with the word DREAM across the blanket. I loved the idea of being wrapped up in my dreams and so I did some investigating as to the creation of this blanket.

Here’s what I found out:

Kristen Schuerlein had a health challenge in her early 30’s. Her doctor described a period of illness that Kristen refused to accept. She would not think of herself or say the word "SICK". Overcoming this health challenge led Kristen to understanding the importance of what we say and ultimately led her to start Affirmagy on Valentine’s Day 2005.

Kristen has now committed herself to the possibility of 1,000,000 people worldwide wrapping themselves and their loved ones in the affirmations that grace Affirmagy’s family of wraps. Kristen’s blankets wrap adults and babies in powerful words of encouragement and love. 

Her vision is a world where people harness the power of "I am" and live a life they truly love.

Check out Affirmagy.com here

Until next time,
Brenda

All of us are constantly striving to become beautiful people. We want to change ourselves, transform ourselves, become perfect in every way. We don’t want to be angry, we don’t want to be judgmental, we don’t want to be jealous, we don’t want to compare, we don’t want to be dishonest; we want to become this beautiful person. And all of us carry within us the image of this beautiful person. The image painted to us by our religion, by our scriptures, by our spiritual tradition, by our society, by our parents.

What is this image? The image of the person, who is never angry, who is never anxious, who is never afraid, who is sweet, full of love, generous, non-judgmental, non-jealous, etc … and constantly you are trying to become this person. You read a book and see you can become this person. You go to a temple, mosque, church, a synagogue and see if you can become this person or you attend lectures like this, seminars like this, hoping you would become this person.

There is constantly a war, a battle of conflict happening within, a conflict between what you are and what you should be like, your present state and the beautiful person you should be, and that is why we constantly find ourselves evaluating every thing into two. Evaluating our thoughts, our speech, our actions, like a referee, saying this is good, this is bad, this should be there, this should not be there. You feel guilty, and then you do all things trying to feel better. We waste so much of our time, our energy and our life, just trying not to feel guilty. And you hope that one day you would become this beautiful person.

1.    Are you aware of when your mind is judging your or someone else’s behavior?

2.    What can you say that will allow you to be ok with you or someone else?

3.    Why would it be important to add non-judgment to your life?

Until next time,
Brenda

We gain nothing talking about the truth, about our true nature, about the unity consciousness. We only flood our mind with more concepts. We are about living life, if we can really live life?

I was speaking to you about this young singer from Mexico. He came to the Oneness University several times. The first time he came, he came with a very profound question – What is the Purpose of my Life? May be if I spoke about that you will probably feel more at home because these are the questions that you expect spiritual people to talk about. This man came with this question. And every few hours he would ask this question to me - What is the Purpose of my Life? I would say I don’t know, Noel. His name is Noel. He kept asking this for ten days.

I had an explanation but that explanation is not the answer, because these questions don’t have an answer. The question itself must disappear, because the question arises from a discontent, from a sense of meaninglessness, from a sense of a lack, lacking a purpose. I offer no explanation because that would not be the real answer. However on the tenth day approximately we were all meditating in the night, a group of 70 people. The room was dark just a candle light at around 1 or 2 in the night we heard a man scream in the room and we all knew it was this person because by then he had become popular in the group because of his persistent question what is the purpose of my life. And what did he scream – "Master! All I want to do is drink a glass of water and eat a banana".

What a profound question – what is the purpose of my life, the ultimate existential question for which every philosopher would die to give an explanation and what an answer he found! He said – "All I want to do is drink a glass of water and eat a banana". This is Life. If we can truly drink a glass of water and eat a banana the question does not exist because the purpose of life is living itself. Because we cannot experience life this way, we try to create a meaning for our life and search for that meaning.

This is life. If you are doing what you are doing when the simple experiences of your day to day existence like drinking a glass of water, like driving your car, like working, like dancing, like watching a movie like playing a sport, when they are transformed into enjoyable experience that is living, that is spirituality.

1.    How conscious are you in everyday life?

2.    Notice the times when you are on auto-pilot. An example is driving to work and then realizing that is not where you were supposed to be going.

3.    What are some actions you will take today to become more aware and present?

Until next time,
Brenda

One of my favorite occupations is life coaching. As a life coach, I love being the raving fan on the sidelines in my client’s game of life.  I get to be their number one supporter, sometimes even before they believe they can achieve their goals.  

Brainstorming with the client in defining their outcome, setting smart goals and creating an action plan is a sure way to get them excited, and also to hold them accountable to their commitments.

Coaching clients requires great listening skills. Sometimes what the client doesn’t say is even more important than what they are telling you. Clients sometimes get confused and think coaching is a problem solving center. They just want you to help them fix what is not working. This can produce attainable results but not sustainable results. If the client does not know the “why” behind his result they may fizzle out before the result is obtained. Finding the “why” will prevent the client from struggling and not reaching their goals.

The beauty of clients consistently achieving or exceeding their goals through coaching is that there is no need for advertising. I work only through referrals and take a limited number of clients so that I can continue to enjoy my chosen occupation.

I invite you to think about the following questions:

1.    In what area of your life do you produce consistent outstanding results?

2.    How do you utilize this in your personal or professional life?

3.    How will you make this something you get to enjoy on a regular basis?

Until next time,
Brenda