Have you ever felt like you’re going bonkers, loosing your mind, seeing things that others don’t or imagining things that aren’t real? Hopefully ;) Remember it’s a common knowledge that all of the great ones are a bit bonkers ;)

We are born with no restrictions, with an ability to trust our gut-feeling and wonderful capability of imagining. Throughout the years we somehow loose our belief and learn how to let go of all of it—we see impossibilities instead of opportunities, problems instead of prospects and the worst of all—we forget how to dream….

Have you ever realized that lots of your daily energy goes habitually into fighting off the negative energy around you and doing things you aren’t passionate about?

Seeing the beauty in the smallest things, imagining your dreams coming true and taking people the way they really are—underneath their fancy clothes, make-up and titles—is a good start on the way to reach happiness.

And maybe sometimes there are needed tears in order to be able to smile, other times our fears might guide us towards our beliefs—all this is good and simply part of our journeys. We are not supposed to be strong and powerful all the time, yet we can become that when we believe in it being possible.

The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether things around us are good or bad—it is only a small decision in our heads anyway—what matters is whether we are able to spread the goodness and kindness around us and learn to live a balanced life in the present moment, believing in everything being possible, thus creating our own reality of positive choices.

‘Sometimes I imagine as many as 6 impossible things already before breakfast…,’ said Alice and all those things became a reality ;) Having confidence in yourself will move on to your dreams and turn all those im’s before possible into confident I AM able to and I will’s!

Love is unquestionably the greatest feeling we can experience in our lives—the unlimited unconditional love that makes us want to be better people, keeps us constantly growing and makes the magic possible. Without a doubt love is also a feeling that people encounter in extremely different ways—for some it means closeness, others find it in solitude, some search for it in the form of a perfect partner, others reach it in their children…. There is definitely no one single way of feeling love or loved, yet we all experience it in one way or another therefore, the question is—do we all learn something from it?

It might sound weird that I am looking for lessons to be learned in love, though I believe that everything we ever come across in our lives should be taken as some sort of lesson—to make us grow and give an insight of who we really are and what we are looking for. And what other powerful feeling could be better to teach us about ourselves than love? ;)

Lately I’ve been talking to many people about relationships and why do we often fight and resist love while we have it and when we feel that it is gone, for whatever reason, we start missing it and regret not taking better care of it? Why do we often hurt those closest to us without even considering our actions for a second, while at the same time we plan our words and deeds to the smallest point when in business? Do we take love for granted—too busy to realize that if not taken care of even the deepest and most unconditional love can dwindle or are we just too afraid to open up and get hurt that we rather choose to loose on the battlefield?

Somehow it seams that it is so much easier to give the hand to self-pity and sorrow when getting hurt, which often leads us to the decision to close up in order to not get hurt. Rather not feel than to let go and experience in order to learn from everything that happens to us—both, good and not so great—understanding that we are far from perfect and even something so right can sometimes be the wrong thing at the wrong time…. Isn’t it all just a decision, a choice to either learn and let go, feeling unconditional love even towards the person we believe might have hurt us? Isn’t it only possible to get hurt when we decide to let someone hurt us?

Yes, it is difficult and takes time to learn how to feel unconditional love towards everyone in our lives and most of all OURSELVES! Sometimes it may seem to be impossible to reach that state ;) Nevertheless, without believing it to be possible and without opening up we close one chapter in our lives that could be the greatest….

Consider this—how magical would it be if we always found the strength, even if not being able to reach consensus about something, to let our loved ones know maybe the most obvious yet incredibly powerful words: PS. I love you, no matter what, from all my heart and soul….
Wouldn’t that make all the difference and all the struggle worth while?

It is amazing how lots of sunshine and birds singing make you feel like a newborn and in many cases it is almost the same feeling as being in love—being in love with this newly found energy of life, enjoying every moment and making it worth to be alive….

Somehow sunshine frequently has this effect on people that it makes it very difficult to frown and stay mad or sad for a longer period of time ;) which is a magical thing!

Often we whine about the weather conditions—doesn’t matter if it is too cold, too warm, too rainy or snowy, too cloudy or to sunny—we can blame the weather on whatever it brings us as it is so much easier to blame our bad mood or misshapenness on something else than ourselves. It is the easiest trick to pass on the responsibility to someone else or even better—to something that we are not able to change, no matter how hard we try.

Why do we do this?!  That’s the human nature—if we have a chance, we would like to be lazy and skip the responsibilities we have. It is tough job to choose the best attitude every day and take responsibility for all our decisions—success and failures. Because if we fail and there’s no one to blame it means that we chose the wrong attitude or made a bad decision in this situation and who would like to be wrong or fail?

What we need to remember and keep in mind is that hardships are our only chance of growing. Making decisions that might seem to be not the best ones at the time can be the best thing that ever happens to us! I know that we all have certain expectations and wishes, we always want certain things in our life to happen—yet what we don’t know is whether those things are right for us at that specific time…. And to be quite honest, I believe that we aren’t supposed to know! We are supposed to choose listening to our gut feeling and taking the responsibility for that choice, sticking to it and learning from it.

We can choose to see the clouds and wish for the sun to appear or we can choose to know that the sun is always there behind the clouds and rejoice when it appears and makes us happy, smiling and celebrating life…. The choice is always ours and nobody else’s!
However, feeling alive and energetic seems to me to be so much better option ;)

We all have dreams and goals in life however there is a great difference between accomplishing those aspirations or not…. I would assume that the first step in order to reach our goals is being able to visualize exactly what we want and believe that it is possible. It might sound very simple and easy yet already the step from imagining to believing can for many take longer than expected, not even mentioning the work itself—sometimes making our dreams a reality can be a time-consuming process….

Waiting for one’s dreams to become a reality can acquire lots of patience—the virtue only few of us possess ;) It usually also requires us to be humble and grateful for all the things we have been able to attain in the past—everything that has lead us to these new dreams, making us grow and move forward. We should be able to use yesterday as an inspiration for tomorrow!

Depending on the dream and goal, the processing time can vary greatly, testing our belief and ability to focus more than we sometimes wish ;) Yet it is important to hold on, as when the time is right and all the pieces of this puzzle are on their right places—those dreams will come true.

I have often advertized that ‘good things come to those who wait,’ yet I often find it extremely difficult to be patient LOL  Super oxymoron, I know!

As usually I seem to get irritated by not getting what I want right away or when someone does something differently than I would have  ;)  In spite of this, I have started to use the magical ability of gratitude…. Whenever I feel irritated or impatient, I find something to be thankful for—in the traffic I am grateful for being able to drive and getting where I want to safely; waiting in a line I am thankful for the opportunity to stand and look at other people etc.

And you know what—this really works! Every time!

We all possess several magical abilities in ourselves that can help us change the way we look at the World and choose the best path in life…. All there is needed is the decision and belief that you can do it!

I believe that the best moments in our lives are those of magical inspiration when someone amazing touches our heart making us glow and feeling the need of passing this inspiration on to others. It can be a person you know or someone you meet on the street or someone the whole World talks about. Inspiration doesn’t necessarily come along with a star-quality or well-known name—it is rather the sincerity and energy of that amazing person that motivates us and makes us want to change for the better, that gives us power to conquer all the obstacles on the way.

The truth is that one person can make a huge difference—all you have to do is to believe in yourself and take the first step in changing the things you want to be different in the World. When you are being passionate about your cause and feel how much good you can produce with it—the rest will follow naturally, not necessarily within a split-second nevertheless, it will come. The glow of a person who has a higher cause and meaning in one’s life is contagious—it might not be the foundation for everybody’s happiness yet, it will definitely inspire others to pass the enthusiasm on. And this is all there really is needed—spreading the word and passion will encourage people to join….

Who is the person that inspires you most? Whom do you turn to when you feel that you’re out of energy and motivation? What keeps you going when it’s really tough?
Knowing that you have some source of this amazing energy always close by is priceless! Hopefully we appreciate and acknowledge those wonderful people in our lives and tell them every time how much they mean to us ;)

Every now and then life brings us challenges that test our will power and mental strength, putting us into situations what people around us might see as impossible to handle. Circumstances, where our abilities are tested to the max; that stretch our understanding of human mind and its powers.

If you’ve been following my ramblings on this blog then you know that I strongly believe our mental powers being the key to everything that we can accomplish—the choice that we make every morning about which attitude we choose, creates the outcome of that day and so continuously for our whole lives.

Sometimes we don’t understand why things need to happen the way they do and how could anything negative lead us to the positive result…. Yet, I have learned not to question the ways of the Universe and am working on letting go of the habit of trying to figure out how can I make it. See, trying is setting yourself up for a failure—you either do or you don’t, trying to do it never gets us anywhere.

We are able to conquer mountains, sending man to space and heal people from difficult diseases, why would we even question our ability to do our best? I am sure that those people who create extraordinary things in their lifetime, they do their best every time, not trying to see if it works out….

To me Olympic Games represent exactly that mental strength and determination. Athletes who are able to take part of the Games are the few who represent their nation and the sport they’ve chosen and billions of people are watching them to create magic. The fact that they’ve made it as far as to the Olympics is already a miracle—think how many people never get there! In spite of that, those athletes have an ability to go even further—believing in themselves they can release their mental powers and overcome any obstacle: injuries, sickness, stress, expectations and even loss of a dear one….

Those who have been following the Games lately know exactly what I am talking about—Joannie Rochette, a Canadian figure skater, who lost her beloved mom just two days before her competition started.

Loss of a loved one is very personal and we all deal with it differently, though one thing is clear—this is something that puts things in real perspective—a person’s life is always more precious and important than any color of a medal or winning.

Now, I looked at this personal tragedy through a very strange perspective…. Joannie decided to compete, which is very honorable and a great decision in my opinion, as it would have been the easiest for her to step out and say I have to be with my family. This determination of hers showed me already that we are dealing with a person who possesses an extraordinary mental strength.

The question everybody started asking next was ‘how will she perform?’ as there are always two options.

Whereas, I believed that there was no question, for a person with such a determination and will-power this experience will be an opportunity to say goodbye to her mother and pour all her emotions into her skating, thus making her magical on the ice ;)  And boy was I proved right ;)))))

Thank you Joannie Rochette for showing people all over that our mind is a miraculous thing—whatever we believe in can be accomplished! No matter how difficult something might look and feel, if we set our mind to it and imagine it, we can achieve it!

Thank you for putting things into perspective for people around you and showing that it is always possible to pull yourself together, no matter how difficult it might seem and always do your best!

I am deeply honored to have witnessed the power of the spirit rise like a phoenix….

Since we are very little we have to face all kinds of challenges in our lives, we learn how to open up and when we get hurt we learn how to hold back and turn away…. First we learn how to listen to your brain and forget about our gut-feeling and then we spend lots of years and energy plus in some cases loads of money in order to learn again how to trust our gut.
We get hurt and occasionally hurt others; we fall in love and feel loved—as a result, all those emotions and challenges leave us with skeletons in the closets and loads of scars.

There are different ways of looking at the scars—they might be seen as something negative, reminding us of all the bad things that have happened to us and/or how much we’ve been hurting. At the same time, they can be seen as something truly beautiful—like a sign of healing, meaning that the hurt is over, the wound being closed and proving that you can finally move on.

I actually believe that the hurt is exactly as strong and long-lasting as we allow it to be…. The sooner we realize that sometimes the tears are needed in order to understand the beauty of smiles, the faster our wounds can start healing and scars will appear reminding us of the lessons learned.

We all know that time heals all the wounds and the only variable here is time, however at the moment of the strongest pain all we can feel is confusion and being sorry for ourselves, which is natural yet not very beneficial to our situation.

Despite the fact that I am positive all the way to my roots, always look for the silver lining in everything and whenever possible keep a deep and sincere smile on my face, I also know that there need to be days in my life when I feel down, sad and confused. I am well aware of the fact that without those days I will not learn, evolve and become a better person. So, all that is left for me to do is to choose my attitude wisely—knowing that the sun is there, even as we might not constantly see it behind the clouds, it is always there and all we have to do is to believe and reach out high enough ;)

Does anyone of us really know what is happiness and how to achieve it? I mean, are you aware of what makes your days brighter? When are you happiest and feel content? How important is love in your search of the most wonderful life?

Crucial questions that often stay unanswered because of the fear of not liking the outcome…. I personally am not so fond of those questions as that would mean that I have to make a decision—choose between several good options while not knowing which is the best. If I choose one, I have to let go of the other option and who can give me the guarantee that I am choosing wisely and will be happy afterwards?

And then I realize that I don’t have to know! Knowing what the future brings is boring and takes the magic out of my life—all I have to know is I will be ok, no matter what I choose! When I feel good about my decision and believe in it, imagine the outcome and let go of the fear of ending up unhappy, any one of my decisions can make me happy ;)

Suddenly it dawned to me that I am happiest when I simply am in the moment and let things happen—let people walk in and out of my life without questioning or pushing-pulling, taking every moment as a gift and always wanting to give more than get. So, what is it that makes me sometimes over think and stop trusting my gut feeling? Why would I ever let something shake my confidence or rock my belief? You tell me! LOL

I guess all this comes with time—the more I try, the more I learn to trust my feelings and myself and this is a great sensation! ;) Knowing that you’ll be ok even when you’re not on top of the World gives you courage to climb there and prove to yourself that everything is possible—you just have to believe!

Today I was actually feeling a bit under the weather, don’t know really why, though I guess that happens every now and then to all of us ;) All this made me look back in my life and remember those moments when I have really felt sad or trapped in the past and made me think about how we often are holding on to the previous emotions, the life that we’ve had and we often are having trouble of letting go and moving on.

Being stuck with the past is one of the most destructive things that can happen to us—this is totally wasted energy, as we cannot change anything that has happened nor can we focus on the present while still mentally in the past. So, why do we often do this—feeling like we cannot get out of it and not knowing how to change it? Isn’t that the million dollar question LOL

It is often emphasized how important it is to stay in the present, to enjoy the moment and look ahead, plan the future and set the goals. My question is: how can you concentrate on the present or the future when you are still caught up in the past? If you aren’t sure how you can change your own mental map, how can you expect different results?
I truly love this saying about how it is craziness to do the same things all over again and expect different results ;)

We can only set certain expectations for ourselves when we know who we are, what we stand for and what we believe in. This knowledge comes from the experience and our past, from all that we’ve been through, yet it is there only if we have been working through the material given to us—all the times we’ve been feeling hurt, sad, happy and exited have taught us something valuable and it is information until it is being processed and turned into knowledge about ourselves.

Without the past there’s no future and holding on to the past robs from us the precious moments of the present….

I wish I could be master Yoda LOL and give everybody an answer on how to let go and focus only on the now, however people are so different and what works to me might definitely not work for someone else. Therefore, reach for it, ask for help and focus on all the wonders of the present and one day you will be able to stay in now in this moment and enjoy it to the fullest—sort of like, happily ever after…. ;)

I am always baffled by different reactions people have to great happenings and wonderful events, especially during these 2010 Olympic Games. Here is where the differences between the cultural backgrounds really come out and all you can do is to look, be amazed, hopefully learn and keep away any judgmental thoughts.

Lets take medal events…. I would believe that any color of a medal is a fantastic accomplishment—to train so hard, learn from all the shortcomings and stay focused—that’s what has brought the athletes to the podium and this is something only few ever get to experience! At that moment doesn’t really matter where they come from, who they are—the whole World is celebrating their great results and great sportsmanship ;)

Now, there are always loads of expectations those athletes need to carry on their shoulders, which in reality only makes their job so much harder. And to me there’s nothing more devastating than to see that countrymen for some of the athletes cannot rejoice for any other color of medals than gold….
Too often we forget that if we could be able to do better than the fantastic athlete, who just won silver or bronze, we would probably not be sitting on those comfortable sofas, rather we’d be doing our best at the Games! It’s so much easier to judge and complain, though only very few ever get as far as to be great athletes and represent their country, and that should remind us of something! To do better or shut up and celebrate! ;)

I believe the only thing we—the people who stay at home and watch the Games from the tv—can and should be doing, is to send the athletes all of our positive energy and thoughts, hope they’ll be safe and sound, keep our fingers crossed and afterwards rejoice and celebrate every result!

Yes, the gold medal is the most valued and the one every athlete is after, though lets remember that there is only one that’s golden and the most important thing is afterwards the journey and how we behave, treat others and manage to get through the whole trip, plus also which attitude we choose and how much we learn.

So, there’s only one thing left to do—get into the great and energetic spirits of the Games and celebrate all the athletes, who get to stand on the podium! ;) YOU ROCK!