“Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them – every day begin the task anew.”  – Saint Francis De Sales

We all could use more patience.  It seems we are hardest on ourselves.  Many people expect others to live up to their expectations, and more often than not, are disappointed.  Looking at our own imperfections and those of others, are judgments we would be wise to let go of.  Judgment, criticism, and all forms of Dis-Couragement only hurt us, they never help us expand as a kind and loving person.  Every moment of every day, you have a choice.  Each day you can begin again.  Live in Courage. Try new things, change your daily routine, get out of habits. This is a good practice to get into.  Brush your teeth, throw a baseball, write, or whatever comes to mind with your non-dominant hand.  This opens new neural networks in the brain, assisting left/right brain function.  A good book for this is Whole Brain Power.

I quote from the Whole Brain Power website

“Michael J. Lavery’s theories about how large and small motor-skill development of both right and left hands, is directly linked to development in the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Michael is revolutionizing our understanding of how best to train the brain. His theories are based on years of personal development of his own astonishing ambidextrous skills as a golfer, baseball player, tennis player, hockey player, painter, and guitarist, as well as his daily practice of memory drills, perfect penmanship and Da Vinci-style mirror-image handwriting with the left hand.

Over the past few years he has been transferring these skills to other people of all ages who have found rapid and phenomenal skill development as athletes in a variety of sports, including tennis, golf and baseball. But his theories go far beyond just turning good athletes into great athletes, for Whole Brain Power™ training methodologies combined with proper nutrition and an understanding of the damaging effects on the brain from television and video games, may have breakthrough implications for preventing obesity, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, ADD, and ADHD.

Furthermore, there is evidence of the correlation between the endogenous production of hormones with those who have followed all of Michael’s skill development regimens, including, ambidextrous hammer and ball drills, mirror-imaging penmanship and intense memory drills. The potential implications of Michael’s theories on the science of memory degeneration and hormone replacement are enormous. By reading WHOLE BRAIN POWER you will learn how the brain and body can be transformed through Michael’s simple ambidextrous skill training, penmanship and memory drills. Get ready to become part of the revolution in wholebrain development in the 21st century.

Book for December  – The Traveler’s Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success

Looking for a gift? This modern morality tale by gifted writer and speaker Andy Andrews teaches seven fundamental strategies for creating a successful life. Much like the best-selling books by Og Mandino, this unique narrative is a blend of entertaining fiction, allegory, and inspiration. Storyteller Andy Andrews gives a front-row seat for one man’s journey of a lifetime. David Ponder has lost his job and the will to live. When he is supernaturally selected to travel through time, he visits historical figures such as Abraham Lincoln, King Solomon, and Anne Frank. Each visit yields a Decision for Success that will one day impact the entire world.

You can order this book at Amazon.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

Karen Armstrong’s book “The Case For God” is a tour de force.  A brilliantly written and passionate book about God.  Karen is one of the most interesting religion writers of her day.  We all have many names for God, to fit our comfort levels.  Karen Armstrong explores those names, and our deep inner beliefs about God, in a way that opens up our minds to expand, not contract.

I view Karen Armstrong as a most courageous woman, who explores a very sensitive subject with great sensitivity.

Here are some editorial reviews from Amazon:

“Karen Armstrong’s book is simply superb. Wide-ranging, detailed, well researched meticulously argued and beautifully written, it is a definitive analysis of the role of religious belief and transcendence in our history and our life.”
—Dr Robert Buckman, author of Can We Be Good without God?

“Karen Armstrong, in writing The Case for God, provides the reader with one of the very best theological works of our time. It brings a new understanding to the complex relationship between human existence and the transcendent nature of God. This is a book that is so well researched and so deep with insight and soaring scholarship that only Karen Armstrong could have written it. The Case for God should be required reading for anyone who claims to be a believer, an agnostic or an atheist.”
—The Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, D.D., Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington, D.C.

“No one is better qualified or more needed than Karen Armstrong to enter the hot public debate between believers and non–believers over the existence of God.  Her latest book, eagerly awaited and received, rings out with the qualities she brings to all of her work—The Case for God is lucid, learned, provocative, and illuminating.  Indeed, Armstrong once again does what she always does best by shining a clear light on the deepest mysteries of the religious imagination.”
—Jonathan Kirsch, author of The Harlot by the Side of the Road

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

I can’t get enough of Oscar Wilde’s wisdom, brilliant wit and charm.  It takes a person living in courage to accomplish the things Oscar Wilde did. I feel influenced by him to live each day more courageously, more authentically.
Do you know Oscar Wilde wrote Fairy Tales?  They are magical, filled with princes, giants, mermaids, kings and nightingales.  How beautiful to write them partly for children, as well as for those adults who have kept their childlike faculties of wonder and joy.  It takes great courage to live outside the box of expected behavior, and yes, Oscar had his share of drama.  He also held value that has lasted the test of time.  I  for one, am grateful for the brilliance he left behind.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

~Oscar Wilde~

We are resolved into the supreme air,

We are made one with what we touch and see,

With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,

With our young lives each springimpassioned tree

Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range

The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole

One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,

And mighty waves of single Being roll

From nerveless germ to man, for we are part

Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,

One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill

One sacrament are consecrate, the earth

Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,

The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth

At daybreak know a pleasure not less real

Than we do, when in some freshblossoming wood

We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,

Or is this daedalfashioned earth less fair,

That we are nature’s heritors, and one

With every pulse of life that beats the air?

Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,

New splendor come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,

Critics of nature, but the joyous sea

Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star

Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be

Part of the mighty universal whole,

And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony

Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,

And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be

One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years

Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,

The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!.

In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr – who is the ultimate of Living In Courage, I share some of his wise words with you that are very timely.  This is from his commencement speech “The American Dream” delivered at Lincoln University on June 6, 1961.

All this is simply to say that all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. As long as there is poverty in this world, no man can be totally rich even if he has a billion dollars. As long as diseases are rampant and millions of people cannot expect to live more than twenty or thirty years, no man can be totally healthy, even if he just got a clean bill of health from the finest clinic in America. Strangely enough, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. You can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way the world is made.”
~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Debra Oakland @ Living In Courage Online

We need to build a global community to come together in peace. This amazing video closes the barrier between religion and race. It is about being compassionate and caring for our fellow men, women and children across the globe. It is about living from that place of courage deep inside of you. This is a time of change on the planet. Will you contribute to the greater good for all?  You can be part of the solution or part of the problem.  Choose wisely.

The Charter brings together the voices of people from all religions. It seeks to remind the world that while all faiths are not the same, they all share the core principle of compassion and the Golden Rule. The Charter will change the tenor of the conversation around religion. It will be a clarion call to the world. Join the world at www.charterforcompassion.org.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to let our creativity be something that unites us, not separates us?  Welcome creativity flowing in and through your life. We are creators. We are directors. We are the architects of our own lives. How about directing your life by welcoming all the greatness life has to offer you? Trust the hierarchy of your being that will set into motion the great possibilities you dare to dream. Let your brilliant mind express through you everything you can conceive in the future. What you can conceive you can achieve. Let the future come closer to you.

Mom in Disneyland at Tune Town

We are all given a divine spark of love and light to basically express the oneness of who and what we are. I am always inspired by Walt Disney, the creation and ongoing creativity during and since his passing. My mother BJ visited from Ruidoso, New Mexico to celebrate 75 years young and healthy.  Mom told me that thinking of going to Disneyland after 20 years made her feel 5 years old again.  We ran around like kids, met 2 wonderful people who surprised Mom and I with lunch and a birthday cake to celebrate.  Thank you Silio and Nikki.  You made our day and gave us memories that will last forever.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online

All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them.
Walt Disney

My friend Teri Hewitt-Ceplo from Hawaii sent this to me this morning.  Her friend Marianne Williamson wrote this wonderful tribute to Barack Obama.  I want to share it with you.  Here at Living in Courage we feel uplifted, hope, love and joy for this election outcome along with the future of the world.  People around the world are responding with hope and enthusiasm.  I have never seen an election such as this, that has given rise to the people in full participation.  What a moment in history. Miracles do happen.  Just say yes.  Yes we can.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online
A Mighty Wind

(Originally posted on February 27, 2008)

Every once in a while, a mighty wind blows.

The political sentiments now storming America in the form of support for Barack Obama are a mighty wind indeed. For those trying to say this is all just hot air, it’s time to point out that so is a windstorm. And storms have a function, in nature and in us. They blow away everything not built on a firm foundation, and make room for a lot of new growth.

I’m a boomer, so I know this feeling. We have been here before. We knew what Bob Dylan meant when he sang, “Something’s going on here, but you don’t know what it is….Do you, Mr. Jones?” And something is going on again. What we’re experiencing here is a new conversation– something qualitatively different than the promises of effective problem-solving that pass for an excitement factor in his opponent’s campaign.

Try to dismiss it though she might, someone who has the capacity to change a society’s conversation has the capacity to change the society. From Bob Dylan to Gloria Steinem to John Lennon to Martin Luther King, Jr., people who use words to foster new thinking are the ones we see in retrospect to have opened doors to a better world. Hillary was right when she said Dr. King couldn’t have passed Civil Rights legislation without Lyndon Johnson, but Johnson couldn’t have done it without King, either. Johnson had the Presidency, but King had the vision. Today we have the historic opportunity – one that comes around only rarely – to have President and visionary be the same person.

A great national leader does not speak just to circumstances; he arouses a nation’s soul. The idea that Obama could not only arouse our soul but also handle our circumstances (has he not handled a pretty formidable circumstance already, giving her such a run for her money?) seems far more probable to me than that Hillary could not only handle our circumstances but also arouse our soul.

Jefferson. Lincoln. Roosevelt. Kennedy. Damn right, their words mattered. Try googling “great speeches” and see what comes up. Great words and great speeches have changed the world because they have changed the way we see the world.

Washington-think is so old-fashioned, so treat-the-symptom-and-pretend-you-healed-the-disease, protect-the-status-quo type of stuff that millions gave up on it a long time ago as an agent of true social improvement. But while few of us are looking to the American government to save the world, we’d prefer that it not destroy it either. Obama was right when he said that we have to do more than just end the war in Iraq; we need to end the mindset that produced it.

At the end of World War II, in the last speech he ever wrote yet died before having a chance to deliver, President Franklin Roosevelt said, “We must do more than end war. We must end the beginnings of all war.” The source of the debacle in Iraq was not an event; it was a mindset. The source of our environmental problems was not an event; it was a mindset. The source of every problem is the mindset that preceded it. And only someone who can speak to the source of a problem can eradicate its roots.

The ability to inspire new thinking is a more important ability in a leader today, than simply being a “problem-solver.” We’re always trying to solve something…. solve health care…solve the economy… solve social security, and so forth. Yet according to Carl Jung, our most important problems cannot be solved; they must be outgrown. Just figuring out who has a better plan with which to treat the symptoms of a problem is not the one who ultimately solves it. What we need is someone with a better state of mind, who will lead us to a better state of ours.

Being swept up in Obama’s inspirational ability is not naïve; thinking inspirational ability doesn’t count for much, is in fact naïve. For in the ability to inspire lies the ability to command the most powerful forces of all. No plan, no piece of legislation, no Washington strategy or political maneuvering would alone be enough to change the probability vector of America’s future. For that, we would need a mighty wind. And a mighty wind now blows.

~~~ Marianne Williamson

Here at Living in Courage, we love Ted Talks where some of the world’s greatest minds meet in Monterey, California once a year to explore new technology and the people who develop and experience great things in the world. I hope you enjoy this video from Ted Talks and explore more of the available videos.

Working from principles of differential geometry, physicist Garrett Lisi is developing a new unified theory that purports to explain all the elementary particles, and gravity, in one elegant model. His theory is based on a mathematical shape called E8. With 248 symmetries, E8 is large, complex and beautiful — and Lisi believes the relationships of its symmetries correspond to known particles and forces, including gravity.

It is through experience that knowledge becomes wisdom.  Wisdom is a great gift.  When used properly, wisdom can assist us to live a life of peace.  What do you search and strive for in your life?  For each one of us it appears in different forms.  Hopefully at some point we become wise enough to see the walls we have built around ourselves that limit us.  Allowing ourselves to release and let go of all that does not work in our life any longer takes courage and inner strength.  These walls of resistance are sometimes invisible even to our own eyes.  It is so easy to look at someone else’s life and see why things are not working out for them.  Yet when we look at ourselves, we often miss what limits us.  I know I want to be a happy little miracle maker.  How about you?  I think we all feel that way.  Some serious contemplation and examination may be necessary (when you are ready) to make profound shifts in your life.  There are millions of books on the subject of living a better, happier, healthier life.  Why then is the world not filled with happy, healthy, successful, peaceful, fulfilled people?  It is sometimes even hard to find people that are filled with true joy.

Our world seems to have sped up at a pace no one can keep up with.  Everyone is busy, busy, busy.  No time is the mantra everyone hears from each other.  People want and need more time just to get through the day and accomplish tasks, just to keep up.

It is time to take the journey back to self, back to love.  Living in the past will only complicate your life and do nothing to build a better brighter future for yourself and your family.  The future does not exist yet.  The moment you are in right now creates your next moments, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years.  This is so simple, that we just don’t get it.  The few who do live happy lives.  How do you feel right now?  Think about this, because it is all that exits.  Imagine a tightrope.  You are standing on the tightrope, which represents NOW.  On one side is the past and the other is the future.  Do you notice there is nothing there? Absolutely nothing.  The past is gone as soon as the moment passes.  The only thing that keeps it alive is your mind or a memory, that’s it.  Imagine the things people could let go of if the past is released into the nothingness that it is.

Embrace the NOW moment.  What do you want?  In the fullness of this moment happening NOW, you get to decide.  Your moments gain momentum and appear in the physical for you to experience.  So, if you get to choose, wouldn’t you want something wonderful in your life?  Every moment you stay peaceful, joyful, productive and take action towards your dreams, you take a step closer to the life you want to live. I want this life for myself and work towards it daily.  Old patterns and habits are exactly that – old, and keep us stuck in a continual rut.  I want out and am climbing that ladder one step at a time, one day at a time by practicing the art of living in the NOW moment.  The more you can stay present, miracles do start happening.  The phone rings, connections are made, people supply you with information or bring you something you needed (without having to ask.) Synchronicity is happening all around you.  Oops! then we forget and go back to old patterns and get old results.

Remember to pull yourself back to NOW as often as you can, until it becomes a great new habit that will reshape your life.  I did not say it would be easy in the beginning.  Just get your foot in the door, use courage, and please trust that things will shift for you when you let go of the judgments and move into joy.  What I wish and dream of for myself, I wish for and dream of for everyone everywhere.  I send you love and support in your best life lived in the courage each of you represent to me.

Debra Oakland @ Living in Courage Online