My First Date… And What Was I Thinking?

Your world of possibilities.

After two years of flying solo following my marital separation, I went out on a date. I could pick any restaurant I wanted – so off we went to a club to dine and take my second salsa dance lesson.

As our discussion progressed during dinner, the topic of relationships arose. Remember, this was my first foray into the dating arena in many a year.

“No, I didn’t notice the tan line on your ring-free, left-hand finger signifying you wear a wedding ring and you’re married,” I said to the “gentleman.”

Did I let this throw me? I made a choice to course correct. I was not willing to let this bozo mar the memory of my first date.

I remained undaunted and had a great night with excellent conversation. Turned out he was a lucid and prophetic dreamer with juicy peeks into the aeries of the dream world.

The next and final time we met, I gave him a book on spiritual dreaming and the number of a therapist.

I could handle change like this, and I didn’t let it bother me. But yet my thinking bucked at smaller things. 

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I picked up a message at 11 PM from my hairdresser, the night before my 10 AM appointment, that informed me she moved.

What was I thinking?

Monkey mind whined that instead of her being 45 minutes away, she would be an hour away. Wrong. Travel time was only 35 minutes – and the new place was definitely nicer.

Why did she move locations? She needed a change. 

All my internal whining was for naught. 

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Then, there was the lawn sprinkler. Not having an automated system necessitated moving the sprinkler several times. A friend bought and installed timers.

I graciously accepted them but thought, “This is a waste; I have to be outdoors to move them around anyway.” Wrong. They are wonderful.

I changed the way I do things. Now I have the flexibility to turn them on whenever I have time, forget about it, and water the rest later.

We want our lives to be different, but we want to remain the same, think the same.

However, if you want something you never have had, you have to be willing to do something you never have done, including the way you think about things.  

We often evaluate our options logically and make a decision based on the best knowledge our minds have to offer. But our thinking is so limited compared to the world of possibilities.

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“Discovery consists of looking at the same things as everyone else and thinking something different… Those ideas or situations that cause you to get off your routine paths and ‘think something different’ are whacks to your thinking.”

Roger von Oech
A Whack on the Side of the Head – How You Can Be More Creative

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We have to make changes to allow our heart’s desires to enter our lives. If we do not respond to the gentle nudges that always precede a change, the two by four whack eventually will bonk us.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to identify where you have been resisting change in your life and look at it from another viewpoint.

Take a chance: change your thinking.

With a zest for life,

Virginia

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes.
Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”

 Henry Miller

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Imagine being on track for
how you REALLY would like your life to be…
with your world of possibilities in your hands,
and YOU decide which ones to choose.

How? Contact me for a free consultation at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive Email was sent in 2001

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

A Very Short Story About My Cat NOT Settling for Crumbs

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. His response was a question: “Where do you want to go?” “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat “it doesn’t matter.”

LEWIS CARROLL, Alice in Wonderland

My cat charged into the house after being outside for hours. There were a couple of teaspoons of broken, dry food left in her dish, but she didn’t approach it. Instead, she regally stood a couple of steps away facing the bowl.

I knew she was hungry, but she didn’t act desperate or whiny. Actually, she didn’t even give an indication she was interested in food.

I told her, “Just eat the little bit that’s left, and I’ll fill your bowl.” I waited.

She remained poised and motionless, like a royal guard in front of Buckingham Palace.

I needed to put more food in the bowl anyway, so I did.  She devoured it.

My cat Micha consistently teaches me non-verbal lessons about living life more powerfully.

To get the point she’s making requires my observing her attitude and approach rather than being arrogant and treating her like she’s “only a cat.”

For example, she doesn’t settle for crumbs, doesn’t eat the few, measly bits that are stale from sitting out too long. She carries an attitude of anticipation that her needs are met, and they are.

When we expect a particular outcome, we may set ourselves up for disappointment if the results aren’t what we imagined.

When we anticipate and believe that life works in our favor, the universe accommodates our intention. We can feel gratitude and appreciation, looking for the blessing rather than focusing on dissatisfaction.

Are you settling for crumbs in some area of your life? You don’t have to.

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Done with settling for less than you deserve or want?
Contact me for a free consultation at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive Email was sent in 2003

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Discouraged about Business or Life?

A client came to see me who felt the proverbial wind was out of her sails. During her session, I wrote beliefs she sadly communicated:

• Nobody is attracted to me because I’m fat.
• People will have to know me before they like me, but I’m not going to have people attracted to me because of my appearance.
• I often feel invisible – people may not remember me by name. 

At first, she resisted my writing her beliefs. Later, when she looked at them objectively, she knew they didn’t make sense.   Her beliefs implied she valued the shallow opinions of strangers more than she valued her own.   She realized she acted aloof, before others could be aloof to her, as a protective, preemptive strike. Even if she gave them a chance to act differently, they felt her fear and behaved in a way that justified her belief. Either way, her self-fulfilling prophecy echoed her unconscious whisperings.   She plugged her energy circuits into what strangers might think about her.   I heard writing is God’s way of showing us our sloppy thinking. Our thoughts and feelings become more translucent when we read them later. Writing is a tool to break our hypnotic spell of what’s not real and wake up.     Fearing others gives away our power.   I knew a man who was emotionally volatile and acted like a human powder keg ready to go off at any time. Once he called me on a Saturday at midnight and demanded I never talk to his wife again. She called me several days earlier to ask me a benign question about a discussion group of mine they planned to attend. He threatened me by saying he knew where I lived, and their house was a two-minute car ride from mine.   At first, I backed off afraid he would explode and harm me. Then, I realized that by avoiding him through fear, I gave him my power. I stopped my dealings with him because I chose not to associate with him. Therefore, instead of avoiding him because of fear, I kept my power.   The same is true in the business world. Fear of rejection may be present when making a sale or communicating an idea to others. What if they don’t like our product or idea?   What if they do?     Illusions can create pain.   The moment we spotlight our attention on our illusory perspective, the hypnotic effect is broken. We become present.   “But you don’t understand. Nobody loves me. Look what happened to me. My mother abandoned me as a child, and I spent my life feeling empty.  My husband divorced me. I have no control of my life, and I’m a victim of circumstances.”   All that really happened was that her mother left, and her husband divorced her. How she chose to interpret those experiences, the spin she put on the story, and where she gave up her power was her choice.   Dave Thomas of Wendy’s fame was born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, lived in squalor as a child, and was on his own before age 15. By not plugging his energy into a story of a woeful childhood, he left a legacy as both an entrepreneur with a restaurant empire and a world-class champion for adopting children with the Dave Thomas Foundation.   Where do you plug your energy circuits?   Continuing to look at life in a non-supportive way is addictive.  To see yourself as “less than” is a habit that you have the ability to shift. You CAN change your perspective. How? Choose to. You are so powerful that you can choose to see you and your life in an even more empowering way… and watch as you renew yourself to reflect your new mindset.   Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to identify what depletes your energy.

• What do you plug your energy into outside of yourself? Is it a person, thing, group, belief, past experience or idea?
• When you do this, what or who controls you?
• Are you blindly believing what others tell you is true?
• How does this relate to your energy depletion of discouragement, anger or other emotion?
• If not this, what does?
• What’s another way you can look at this?
• What can you do to get on a new track? Go a step at a time to do this.   

Success Thought:

Recognition of your addictions requires inner work. It requires that you look clearly at the places where you lose power in your life, where you are controlled by external circumstances. It requires going through your defenses… Once an addiction has been acknowledged, it cannot be ignored, and it cannot be released without changing your life, without changing your self-image, without changing your entire perceptual and conceptual framework. We do not want to do that because it is our nature to resist change. Therefore, we resist acknowledging our addictions.
 
GARY ZUKAV, The Seat of the Soul

With a zest for Life,
 
Virginia

Tired of feeling the way you do?
Contact me for a free consultation at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Original Soulgoal Missive Email was sent in 2003

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Labor Doesn’t Have to Be Work: 8 Interesting Quotes

The US federal holiday of Labor Day is held in honor of working people on the first Monday in September.

A definition of labor in Dictionary.com is “productive activity, especially for the sake of economic gain.”

In recognition of Labor Day, here are quotes that offer a refreshing perspective about labor aside from hard work.

With gratitude,

Virginia

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“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.”  Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was an American entrepreneur and business magnate who was a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.

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“A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.”  Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third president of the United States.

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“Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.” Madeleine L’Engle

Madeleine L’Engle was an American writer of young adult fiction, including A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.

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“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.” Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was the most influential physicist of the 20th century who developed the theory of relativity.

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“My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition.” Indira Gandhi

Indira Gandhi was the only female Prime Minister of India, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India.

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“A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them.”  Elbert Hubbard  

Elbert Hubbard was an American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher .

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“The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.”  Arnold J. Toynbee

Arnold J. Toynbee was a British economic historian also noted for his social commitment and desire to improve the living conditions of the working classes.

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“Choose a job you love and you will never have to work a day in your life.”  Confucius

Confucius was a Chinese teacher, editor, politician. The philosophy of Confucius, also known as Confucianism, emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity.

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Would you like to enjoy what you do as a labor of love?
Contact me for a free consultation at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share
their gifts or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck or could 
use new tools or support.

I help them ignite their Soul’s goals
and be richly compensated doing what
they love.

Originally blog posted on September 3, 2018

Copyright © 2021 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.