Are you part of the “autumn is here too soon” or the “summer went by too fast” brigade?

We are where we are, and yes, summer is coming to an end and we are transitioning into the next season.

Let’s look at the possibilities rather than the limitations. What is possible in the final four months of this year? There will be endings and new beginnings for certain. What do you need to stop doing and what small thing can you begin doing that will have the greatest impact?

What unspoken rules and limitations are you placing around yourself?

What opportunities can you see ahead?
Give yourself permission to live and to be “brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous” because “you are powerful beyond measure.” (Marianne Williamson)

 

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine, as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

 

Open your heart to access the bottomless reservoir of creativity that lies within you. “As long as you are dancing, there are no rules.”

Mary Oliver treats us to a short insightful poem

 

Three Things to Remember

As long as you’re dancing, you can
break the rules.

Sometimes breaking the rules is just
extending the rules.

Sometimes there are no rules.

 

Of course there are rules, but do you allow them to define you and your actions? Do they determine how you show up, participate and engage? “Sometimes breaking the rules is just extending the rules.”

What a fun thought! Sometimes we categorise, limit and constrain ourselves with the rules. What if the rules were only guidelines, a way to challenge us to be creative and examine the possibilities rather than dwell in impossibilities? Martin Seligman, in his book Learned Optimism, invites us to live out of learned optimism rather than learned helplessness.

Go on…bend the rules!

… but what if, after all, there are no rules?

 

We are so used to a world of rules and regualtions, of what to do and what not to do, that we have learned to respond to the real or perceived stimulus, just as predictably as Pavlov’s dogs. We have absorbed the fear and now it cages us into a rule bound, reactionary robot!

BUT we are thinking, highly functioning human beings … when we know better, we do better.

 

And now you know…

 sometimes the rule is that there are no rules!