Imagine this, over a 6 year period, I lost my 21 year old son, my unborn baby girl in my 8th month of pregnancy, 2 brothers to AIDS, and my father. I could have given up, felt sorry for myself, made it about me, instead I asked myself what each one of them would have wanted for me, and that was to live a life of courage, to encourage others, to have a wonderful life. Today I live in Laguna Beach, California with Cody, my awesome husband of 22 years, who walked this journey with me, lending me strength and courage every step of the way. Cody and I live such a blessed and incredible life together. I know that I have come through all of this more courageous, stronger, able to cope with life in a much more powerful way because of the lessons learned along the way.
Since the beginning of time, there have been stories of courage. We have all read many books, seen movies that inspire or encourage us to the depths of our soul, been around people who we look at with wonder because of the courageous things they have done. Sometimes it is something very simple, yet so profound that changes our day, sometimes it is more than we can wrap our minds around. Whatever it is that shakes us up and out of old negative patterns we wish to break, should be welcomed with open arms.
Hello, my name is Debra Oakland. I am all about Living in Courage. This subject fascinates me because of all the possibilities it presents. Courage means different things to different people all over the world. To navigate through this world we live in requires a certain amount of courage from each of us. I hope you will join me in this exploration by sharing your stories and experiences that have required courage in your life. Many people are looking for answers to some of life's biggest questions. Your stories can make a big difference in another persons life. I hope to see you here often.
The words Encourage, In Courage and Living In Courage have come up every morning for month’s now. These words come up in my dreams, my thoughts and follow me around like a small child tugging on my pant leg wanting immediate attention. I am intrigued, interested, and very eager to explore this subject, not knowing where it will lead, but knowing in my heart it will be an incredible journey down a path of love and light.
Jamie Oliver’s TED prize talk, makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food. Jamie spoke at TED2010 this February in Long Beach, CA for 22 minutes, about the state of world health, or rather the lack of it. Jamie is reaching out globally, with courage and passion.
Remember the shaggy-haired “Naked Chef” of late-’90s? One of my favorite cooking shows back then. Jamie was courageous, raw, and was passionate about food. I became a fan. He has built a worldwide media conglomerate of TV shows, books, cookware and magazines. His idea of sharing unpretentious food with friends and family, was refreshing to me. Everyone gets to play in the kitchen.
Jamie now has Fifteen Foundation’s. He has trained young chefs from challenged backgrounds to run four of his restaurants. He visits schools to teach children to grow organic gardens of their own, and for their school time meals. Jamie’s School Dinner, Ministry of Food and Food Revolution USA combine Oliver’s culinary tools, cookbooks and television, with serious activism and community organizing — to create change on both the individual and governmental level.
I wanted to introduce you to Kimberly Schneider, The Manifestation Maven, who I had the pleasure of meeting recently. Kimberly is the creator of The Cornucopia Method of Manifestation™, a powerful and proven 5-step process that has helped thousands of people all over North America create more of what they want and less of what they don’t in their lives. I love Kimberly’s comfortable manner, while relaying very valuable information.
A former trial attorney and psychotherapist, Kimberly especially likes working with live audiences. She specializes in “5-minute life makeovers” because a few minutes are often all she needs to identify limiting beliefs and communicate them in a compassionate yet direct, lively and compelling manner.
Kimberly facilitates www.ManifestationMastermind.com, a teleseminar coaching program, and works with select high-level business coaching clients in her Alchemy of Business, VIP Map a Business in a Day and Day of Transformation coaching programs.
A poet, dancer, world traveler, spiritual adventurer and business alchemist, she lives in the St. Louis area with her husband, two kids and two cats. Kimberly has two extraordinary children, one of whom has special needs.
Mike Prysner tells of his feelings during the war, how the war woke him up to the truth of what is really going on. This video is amazing, to say the least. It took great courage for Mike to speak out. This video touched my heart to the core. Please share this with others who believe we can all live in courage.
“Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us.”
- Mike Prysner
I was thinking about the power of imagination, and what it can do for everyone who chooses to use it. Your imagination is your workshop. There is nothing to limit you in any way. As an added bonus, it’s FREE! The best things in life really are free. There is a feeling of empowerment attached to creating anything you can imagine. To being limitless. Don’t you find yourself getting excited just thinking about it? I know I do. As children we use our imagination endlessly, sometimes re-running the same sequences over and over in our minds. We felt inspired and alive, believing in possibility. Anticipation and expectation filled our beings.
Spending time creating in your imagination, puts you in contact with powerful invisible forces. Be fearless. This is a safe place for you to spend quality time. Create, relax and enjoy anything you can dream of. Image something formless into form by visualizing in your minds eye. Your emotions are brought into action which creates feeling. This makes you receptive. You can choose to use this constructively, or destructively, so choose wisely. Free will belongs to you, as does the power of concentration. If you have created patterns in your life that you would like to reverse, visit your workshop to create the life you want.
As you continue spending time in your workshop, you will find your life shifting. What you focus on expands, creating manifestations in the outer world. Your inner world gives you a place to make choices and decisions, regarding your life. You are connected to the higher source of all your good, to infinite intelligence, from all time and space. Focus like a laser beam on the expected results. And most of all, have fun creating.
Each and every person is connected by a common bond. We are ONE. Everyone matters. This video aired during NBC’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on Friday, February 12th 2010. The recording took place on February 1st, 2010, in the same studio as the original 25 years earlier. “We Are The World 25 For Haiti“, in which Jones and Richie serve as executive producers and producers with many other collaborators, to benefit the Haitian earthquake relief efforts and the rebuilding of Haiti.
The 25th Anniversary recording features over 80 artists and performers.
Many acts of courage have occurred since the earthquake in Haiti, and great generosity has been extended to the people there. The contributions have come in many forms. Like the song says, let’s make a better day, just you and me. Every day citizens – everybody pitching in. Now that is Living in Courage!
When you tap into your Inner Power Source, you will find courage at the center. This “source” of who you truly are, fears nothing. The less evolved self, or the little “I” can live in fear and doubt. It really is time to stop this bondage of our spirit, by living from the inside out. Living from the outside in, is an old game most of us are tired playing. It has been exhausting. No one ever wins, and the game never ends. Let’s create a new game. One in which we all win by supporting each other. When one wins, we all win. Games are supposed to be fun!
If you are of a mind set that someone has to lose, in order for someone to win, open your mind to a new way of thinking. Courage speaks the language of “I Can – I Will.” Say “Yes to Life” and you will find life saying yes to you. Doubt and fear must be removed from the game of life, before courage can act in it’s full empowerment. What will you replace fear and doubt with?
Love and Light
Courage and Hope
Joy and Harmony
Wisdom and Confidence
Unity and Grace
Peace and Joy
Abundance and Opulence
Health and Wellbeing
Single Minded Purpose and Clarity
Make your own list. Everyone has different dreams and goals. Really think about what you want. Why do you fear what you fear? Is what you fear true? What steps can you take to release the fear or doubt? Ask yourself some powerful questions. Use courage when looking into the face of fear. Fear is a weakling, and only holds the power you give it. By living from the inside out, you are not giving your power away. By choosing to create a miraculous life, you will expand.
Work with the principles of life that are your true nature. Play the game of life to win. Courageously maneuver yourself into a power position. As you become an expert at playing the game of life, become a messenger, a teacher to others. When you bring people into your game, they will learn that no one needs to lose. That is one of the purposes of the game. You will be able to provide your fellow players with insight, and encouragement. They will receive invaluable wisdom into how to play the game of life, where everyone wins. Inspire greatness in yourself, share it, and people will pass it on.
“The Meadow” Is a novel about love, that covers many thousands of years. A Tale of undying and eternal love, demonstrating the interconnectedness of the Universe through the expression of two people who live many lives over thousands of years. The authors Mike O’Hare and Elfreda Pretorius come from different continents and knew nothing about each others existence. Details of their story is below, and reads like a novel itself. I encourage you to read this amazing book of intrigue, meaning of life, eternal love , spirituality, mystery, sex and much more. Talk about Living in Courage!
Overview of The Meadow
The Meadow is a passport into other worlds, allowing the reader to travel to ancient destinations whilst remaining in the safety and comfort of an arm chair. Philosophically, it is a tale of the struggle between Light and Dark, personified in two root characters that meet and fall in love in antiquity, only to discover that life is imperfect and far too short.
The tale of The Meadow assumes that we slip through the trapdoor of death to live again and again to continue experiencing the magnificent spectrum of emotions and polarities of more lives which enable us to grow spiritually, mentally and emotionally. Precisely how the soul is molded over eons into a sentient being with the ability to feel and experience is a closely guarded secret of Creation. Yet, there are instances of refined consciousness, capable of traversing heavenly realms, which have discovered the Meadow, ingeniously hidden in the astral level or Middle Place. The story of Teuch and Anacaona’s love is woven around just such a concept, daring the reader to delve into the possibility that all is not as it seems and that we bear a solemn responsibility to live our lives in as much consciousness as we are capable of.
Swathed in primordial mystery, the story blazes a trail through four devastating lives and personalities, from ancient Mexica to contemporary Pakistan, before luring the lead characters into the twenty first century, where we meet them as Steve Ballantire and Eva Norman. But they do not arrive here alone. Obsessed with revenge many centuries old, their nemesis, representing the Dark side, is in hot pursuit of the protagonists.
The intrigue intensifies when the British authorities express an interest in Hugo, the brilliant child of Eva, and snatches him and his mother from the clutches of ‘the evil one’ in Tel Aviv, to place him under the tutelage of Steve Ballantire, an esteemed professor based in North East England. Due to this intervention of MI6, the lead characters finally meet in this life. However, their fanatical adversary yet again follows them to England, leading to the devious abduction of Eva and resulting in a nerve-wracking international chase across the world; climaxing in the Himalaya Mountains. It is here where a small, but remarkable monk begins to lead the story back to its roots in antiquity, and the boundaries of time are finally erased. Inevitably, ancient identities of past eras emerge into full awareness to force the final cosmic showdown.
Steeped in symbolism and mystery, Hugo, a mildly autistic savant, unravels the enigmas of the story and reveals his understanding of our universe being based in mathematics. The Tibetan monk and the boy independently confirm the existence of the celestial halfway house known as the Meadow, and this leads to Hugo locating star gates which demonstrate the absolute interconnectedness of everything.
This tale is of an ancient dream that had awakened into the twenty first century, where from the smoldering embers of antiquity, it snaked a path through centuries of unspeakable violence, impossible sacrifice and incredible passion to find its way back into the lives of Steve and Eva. Through the trials and tribulations of the characters in the book, the readers are subtly invited to investigate their own lives and evaluate the possibility of having lived before. But that is not where it ends.
Drawn together by unusual circumstances to tell the story of The Meadow are two strangers who live on separate continents. As they created the tale, the authors peered through the kaleidoscope of life, and slowly turning the lens, they wrote about sex, violence, intrigue, betrayal, murder, mystery, politics, religion, suspense, science and physics, spirituality, and even magic. The jury is still out on whether the authors wrote their book from actual memory, or if this all springs from very fertile imagination.
The Meadow is comparable to “The Thornbirds” by Colleen McCullough and “Pillars of the Earth” by Ken Follet. The book will appeal to female readers of adult age and interest the growing number of people around the world (male and female) curious about exploring the possibility of life continuing on beyond death.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
A remarkable aspect of The Meadow is that the authors hail from separate continents and for most of their lives knew nothing about each other’s existence. By the time they had completed their mega manuscript they had still not laid eyes on one another and, given their life circumstances and vocations, even a chance meeting was a most unlikely possibility. Yet, with Mike O’Hare who is from North East England and Elfreda Pretorius, who resides in Canada, an interesting but powerful force was at work which would dictate almost three years of their lives. In 2005 an unusual meeting of minds set the scene for an ambitious project that neither author could have foretold, even if they had had a crystal ball.
Mike O’Hare began his career as a compositor in the newspaper industry but with an inherent love of writing, the pen always lay alongside the setting stick/Linotype keyboard and he soon began contributing short editorials for his local paper. In 1969 when Neil Armstrong stepped off his moon ladder, “one short step for mankind” became the foundation for Mike’s article, which set a trend for years to follow, during which time he wrote a series of short pieces for magazines and newspapers.
In later years he lost heart for his trade as it evolved into the electronic era and transferred from the production side of printing to the excitement and trappings that sales offered. Eventually he brokered his way to a comfortable existence and retired early to nurture his love of writing and concentrate his creative efforts on an idea that had taken root in his mind when he was in his late teens. Fearful of ridicule, the idea remained a closely guarded secret, but an unusual meeting with a stranger would soon lead to its blossoming into The Meadow.
Elfreda Pretorius’s field of expertise is communication, expressed in writing, coaching and teaching. As a best selling author in the self-help industry (Stop Struggling and Start Living – Rules of the Game), she demonstrated her grasp of the human psyche through authoring this book which has become a powerful tool to help change the games of others along with its companion workbook, Ten Truths from the Top of Table Mountain. Due to popular demand, a self coaching program based on the book will soon be available for download from her personal web site: HYPERLINK “http://www.elfredapretorius.com” www.elfredapretorius.com.
Similar to Mike, she is intensely interested in the world, the dissemination of accurate information and the evolution of man as he is subjected to various schools of thought. They became acquainted via the Internet, on a web site where just such a meeting of minds was in progress and very soon slipped into a wonderful friendship, as comfortably as one would slip into an old pair of jeans. She learned of his wonderful idea for a book, and spontaneously offered to help him dip pen in ink. Due to a pressing workload, her plan was not to linger for too long, but she never left the project. Through the confluence of their combined creativity The Meadow developed into a narrative neither could have imagined in their wildest dreams.
The entire novel was written via the Internet, through an exchange of ideas and thoughts that defies accurate description. Both authors were aware of a creative force at work in the two and half years that it took to complete a project of which they feel very privileged to have been a part.
If you love to live your truth, tell your story, feel your pain, express your joy, take what you need, and give what you will – You will love Owning Pink. This is an amazing online community, that supports, offers guidance, inspiration and ideas. This is done through posts, workshops, and the Pink Posse forum. This is a safe place, free of facades. Owning Pink allows you to reclaim your mojo, and tap into your most authentic you. Owning Pink roars courage to me.
Lissa Rankin created this space for you. Here is some information about Lissa from her blog – Lissa Rankin is an OB/GYN physician, author of the forthcoming What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend (St. Martin’s Press, 2010) and Encaustic: A Guide To Creating Fine Art With Wax (Random House, 2010), a nationally-represented professional artist, a mother, and founder of Owning Pink, a website and series of workshops committed to building authentic community and empowering women to get their mojo back. She is also a dog walker, a spiritual seeker, a wife, a yogini, a chauffeur, a cook, and a music fanatic. First and foremost, she is a woman, and like many women, she once thought she had to put herself into a box and choose who to be. She now accepts that, while she is all these things, no single identity defines her. She is more than what she does. She strives to be authentic, in all aspects of her life, and she encourages others to do the same.
Lissa practices holistic women’s health at Clear Center of Health in Mill Valley, California. Her nationally-recognized abstract encaustic paintings and sculptures are represented by galleries in San Francisco, Santa Fe, Boston, Atlanta, Laguna Beach, Houston,and Bethesda. She currently resides in Northern California with her husband and fellow artist, Matt Klein, and their daughter, Siena.
Here are some links for you to connect with Lissa, Owning Pink and The Pink Posse:
” When you make a mistake, don’t look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is what is yet in your power” – Hugh White
Making mistakes is how we learn contrast, how we discern what we want, and don’t want in our life. As they say, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and move on. Everyone makes mistakes, has challenges, bumps in the road. Everyone. Looking back with regret, blocks our movement forward to bigger and better things. Your future is up to you. Create it in each moment. Every breath you take, gives you a choice. The first time you attempted to walk, how did that work out for you? I bet you are an expert now. Never give up too soon on something you truly believe in. You are a creator in training. The future is in your power to create. Walk forward courageous in your choices.
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Endorsements
“Debra Oakland has clearly written Living in Courage from the heart. This is a book that guides people to summon the courage to face life's biggest challenges. You will find wonderful nuggets that you can apply to your life now.”
~ David Riklan, Founder of SelfGrowth.com,
the #1 Self Improvement Website on the Internet
www.SelfGrowth.com
Hello, my name is Debra Oakland. I am all about Living in Courage. This subject fascinates me because of all the possibilities it presents. Courage means different things to different people all over the world. To navigate through this world we live in requires a certain amount of courage from each of us. I hope you will join me in this exploration by sharing your stories and experiences that have required courage in your life. Many people are looking for answers to some of life's biggest questions. Your stories can make a big difference in another persons life. I hope to see you here often.
