Success Gems-House Building..

by Jewel Diamond Taylor

"A tired carpenter was ready to retire. He told his employer of his plans to retire and leave the house-building business and live a more leisurely life with his wife and family. The contractor was sorry to see his experienced worker go and asked if he could build just one more house as a personal favor.

The carpenter reluctantly said "yes", but his heart was not in his work. He rushed and used inferior materials.

When the carpenter finished his work the employer came to inspect the house. He handed the front-door key to the carpenter. "This is your house," he said, "my gift to you." The carpenter was shocked! What a shame! If he had only known he was building his own house, he would have done it all so differently.


So it is with us.

We build our lives, a day at a time, often putting less than our best into the building. If we could do it over, we'd do it much differently. But we cannot go back.


You are a carpenter. What are you building?

Each day you hammer a nail, add a room or paint a wall.

"Life is a do-it-yourself project,"

Your attitudes and the choices you make today, build the "house" you live in tomorrow.

Build wisely!

be mediocre in the way you love and serve others.

Love smart with your heart and don't settle for less, mess and stress in your relationships. Build a life of peace, love, harmony, joy, faith, love and excellence.

Be above average in your work performance, the way you dress, speak, pray and play.

Strive for quality instead of seeking short cuts and below average living. Grow wise in your habits, emotions, spending and health choices.

Walk, talk, live and love at your best whether someone sees you or not.

Let your light shine bright in ALL that you do.

Polish up your image and your living space. Don't compromise your character.

Sow cheap, reap cheap.

Sow quality, reap quality.

Do your best whether or not you get credit and recognition.


God sees your sincere efforts and hears your prayers. BUILD righteously and be blessed beyond your wildest dreams."

JewelMotivaves@gmail.com

A Ya Ya day~What an Amazing Awakening it 'tis!

You cannot speak that which you do not know. You cannot share that which you do not feel. You cannot translate that which you do not have. And you cannot give that which you do not possess. To give it and to share it, and for it to be effective you first need to have it. Good communication starts with good preparation.~ George C. Fraser

Yesterday I had a d'light*full day.

I actually spoke very eloquently, passionately and sincerely taking my authority in a matter that had to be cared for with a couple of people that had been long overdue in adjusting. It had been decades in the making. It was not something necessary for a Made for Tv Movie, but it was so forever more there is no doubt or question in my humanity, my belief and dreams. I will not go into what it was all about as I have no desire to embarrass or publicly need to do so. And in all fairness how would they have known if I had not said anything, choosing instead to swallowed again and again and again which in the finally anaylsis was me living a lie that had been proposed as truth then morphing into an unconsicous belief. A lie was told but I very passively, unconsciously opted to live, instead of throwing it off as the debris that it was.

This moment was not planned, it was simply that time had come. My focus that day was completely opposite from what did indeed happend.

Without drama or fanfare, I stated my case. Respectfully, truthfully & passionately. They listen.

I do not know if they heard.

And it does not matter since it was not a Movie made for Tv.

We will just say it was one of those "Ya Ya Sisterhood/ Towanda/I'm every woman" like moments that I can realistic enough to know may happen again with someone as life ain't over by a long shot. I so know my weight challenges had been in part because of anger & rage that had been swallowed again and again until it spilled over onto my bones. It took me years to acknowledge to myself in a very cellular way without excuses or justification of how angry I was and how much I had swallowed.

Make no mistake I am a pretty happy person and despite a lot of things. I had managed to have a pretty good life, but always in the corner of my mind was this anger...

And now there is no more room.

Here,I have to use a friend, a Ya Ya warrior woman in her own right words eloquently described of how it felt after her liberation day:

"I think a lot of us know subconsciously that it is a lie we are living but we are afraid of letting go and making space for whatever may come in its place.

WE almost dread change and when the universe finally sees that we are not going to let go it steps in and hits us with a whammy and we have no choices we kind of stop holding our breath and breathe out all that knotted, tied up poisonous anger inside that we have tried to bury with food or cigarettes or things or money.

WHAT AN AMAZING AWAKENING IT IS.

Colours take on a new brightness and things which were dark become clear and you find you actually can fly and are strong enough to handle anything. Fear is the bondage we place on ourselves. Faith and change are radical concepts but of the freedom and the colour and the love one finds when you let go and put down what you have been carrying. It pours out of everything and the fear just evaporates.

The corporeal part of you remains the way it is unless you wish to work on it but the spirit is free and so much more discerning and there is so much free beauty around us to fill in the dark spaces; I visualise a stained glass window with the sun streaming through the colours and falling on flagstones and irradiating them as well. There will be spaces remaining which are not filled but they enhance what the now holds. through their very contrast. Sometimes there are truths you have known and colours within which you have covered which only a loving Heavenly Creator can see and must do something about and the means may initially not be pleasant but oh the end!

The end is a Stained glass Rose window of multiple hue shedding light on all who pass beneath it. The end is a rainbow with a pot of molten rich gold velvet so soft and warm and all enfolding for you to put on and warm yourself in. It is diaphanous so that others may bask in it's light and form. It is freedom, true freedom that you may love yourself as a self in the now. I hope you understand the glorious feeling that I am trying to convey with these images. These are divinity. Each one of us can discover this. I wonder how many people do".

I could not have said it anybetter...

I had such a liberating Ya Ya day yesterday. I knew this time was coming as I've worked long and hard, sometimes veering off the trail to look at something, lollygagging, being distracted but then finding my way back to the happy trails. My now emptied room took a lot of time a lot more and far longer then I would have cared for and probably wore some people out in the process as I kept looking through boxes of stuff that was so dusty and faded it made me wonder why in the Sam Hill did I keep them around?

But rather then waste one more precious moment on wondering they were tossed away. Not tossed aside so they could be put back but tossed out!

And how gloriously, juicily, decisively liberated I felt.

Later in the day in my mailbox was to small packages that made me grin. One was one of my rewards for reaching a milestone, a big one for me. I had seen a vintage pair of checkered Mod sunglasses circa 1964 & treated myself to them. And are they not only fabu, looking great on me to boot! I was delighted and was showing them to several friends who really like them.

However, there was one person present, one which I've had to back off a few paces prior saw them and gave a lukewarm "oh they are so you" which wasn't very sincere, more of those "well I do not care for them how dare you wear them and they are not appropriate for a woman of your age , but if it makes you happy okaaaay" tone of voice to show her disapproval.

I let her tone and words roll right off my back as I neither needed or asked her permission to have them. She's done it before over a period of time. I have no seen her as being against me, just not necessarily for me. When she has been far meit was always on the terms she decided for me.

It did not rock my joy I got iv where she is coming from.

I've dealt with some people unfortunately most of my life who have attitudes like that and have allotted them to lessen my joy. But not after having a Ya Ya day like yesterday!

Golden hugs and sunshine from this one Sassy Lassy who has repacked her Sass & carrying it with her!

You Lift Me Up...

When things go wrong don't go with them.~ Elvis Presley, rock & roll icon

Lifting yourself up and continuing forward

Healthy Reflections http://www.sparkspeople.com/

Does it ever feel like trouble follows you around and won't cut you any slack? Sometimes it feels like you can't buy a break and everything you try just makes things worse. Who could blame you for feeling sorry for yourself or not forgive a little self-destructive behavior? Bad idea. The new, healthy way to spend down times is to lift yourself up and operate at a higher level. Remember that what happens to you is not who you are. It's history. It's past. Your true self takes that history and decides how to make the best possible future out of it. You have the power to keep your attitude and values from driving into the ditch along with the events in your life. From defeat, you can still emerge victorious.

What It Looks Like

"To be nobody but yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else-- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting". ~E.E Cummings

This remark by Cummings, a poet, made wonder why on earth would one have to fight to be fully themselves having the courage of their convictions or living a fruitful productive life?

Of course then I realize that there is always always, always someone who seem to want for you not to be acceptable of oneself or accepting what is an inalienable right to have a joyously, juicy, delicious golden life. When ones may have embarked on doing things like can make a life, their life shimmer as encased in gold.

Whether it is something as simple as learning to ride a bike at 65, going back to college at 50, even hang gliding (though its not something I want to do) or be like the Scottish woman who all she wanted to do was to fulfill a promise to her mother after years of loving care was to sing, someone had to put her up to put her down.

Anthony Robbins said once about dreaming so big that people will laugh at you. If they are not, you are not dreaming big enough. It don't matter if it not come to fruition, but wouldn't just imagining it can make your life golden? What will success look like to you now or when you reach the goal?

Are your preparing for that eventuality or is it somewhat half cocked, a vague idea of what life will be like. And what if life does not end up being what you envision?


Adjusting your vision tweaking it as you are going through the process is smart & healthy. Even if you have a regression which is also normal having an idea of your vision plan, a guide or outline will aid you greatly in saying on track or a map to guide you back if you were distracted.

A successful plan can engage you into seeing yourself doing something you've only talked about whether it is something as simple as learning to ride a bike at 65, going back to college at 50, even hang gliding (though its not something I want to do) or be like the Scottish woman who set out to accomplish all she wanted to do & that was to fulfill a promise to her mother & herself. After years of loving care she opened her mouth & the world fell in love with her heart's desire, to sing, reached a mega number audience in the process. What she had only dreamt about, she created a vision plan, acted on it & won.

Not the contest which was really secondary, but she won...

She won even as some put her up to put her down. Even the ones who did not want her to change. It was interesting both camps seemed to focus on the same thing; her weight "dumpiness" lack of sophistication, "unattractiveness". Some clamor for an improvement, others wanting none.

But she knew what she wanted, went after it and got it!

Although she did not win the top spot, tabloids trashed her had her in rehab, in a mental health hospital a Boyle gone wild scenario. Yet she was like most of us, an average person with an amazing voice who simply wanted to use it in a larger way. And dared to dream big so much that others took noticed.

And it is well earned for her, you & me. While that might not be our aspiration, your bigness could be something more modest.

Being motivated will only go so far... George Frasier, author of the book Click!;Ten Truths To Building Extraordinary Relationships, said recently:"Motivation alone is not enough. If you have an idiot and you motivate him, now you have a motivated idiot"... It seems apparent, to me, evidence by the gazillion self help books /programs that are out there, that there are tons of people who are motivational junkies enjoying the next rush in hearing ,the speech,, reading the next book, seeing the next inspiring movie, but never quite ever going past that point.

We all may know someone like that and sometimes it is no further then the mirror. And we could all use the infusion, I know I do, because some times we do take detours, get off the track, pay more attention to people who while not necessarily against us but not for us. We can get so close to seeing what success looks like and it can be so awesome we get a wee bit overwhelmed or downright scared and back off the plan.

You go after it, after all, to see what success can look like.

A vision is a very good thing.

One with a plan is an excellent one.

One put into action is supreme.

A vision keeps you excited, keeps it juicy, keeps you from bumping around in the
dark.

It will make you know success when you see it .

Declaration of Me~On My Side of the Fence

I am a pretty groovy woman if I say so myself.

And I am not gonna do the "appropriate" thing as it is expected or conditioned for a woman to do when she acknowledges her assets by down playing, externalizing what she can do by saying "it just happened or someone is far better at doing XYZ as I" because we all know the world including the culture of women who will, in some corners, punish one with either a benign "tsk, tsk, tsk" to an outright character assassination to remind you of your place if you have the audacity of affirming yourself.

It can make some folks nervous, having audacity, as one has to have some sense of feeling & knowing being powerful to be what they are especially if they possess a uterus. And when one has not reached that point may feel uncomfortable when another does, or had it/lost it/retrieved it/lost it again even for a minute may feel they have to "tsk, tsk", I say that's ok.

However, if any reader feels they have to even in their thoughts, I say of you, save yourself the trouble of "tsking" as I've heard it before & will probably hear it again. However it will not be today or tomorrow or the day after. I cannot do much for your thoughts as that is your free-ness, just don't send it to me.

Alright?

I know on good authority that the sun will still come up everyday without fail. Even if you cannot see it for a moment behind the cloud that will deflect its glow, its going to come out...

Now, despite a whole lotta shakin goin' on previously in my life, I have managed,nay actively have embraced living, indeed having a whole lot of love to share, move a few mountain, supported many a soul, laughed, made contributions to others, made a few ripples, alter some perception inclusive of an active healthy appreciation of who I am.

As Kahlil Gibran once said:
"The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven"?

Without a question I am flawed, however it is the cayenne pepper, the oomph that keeps me from sainthood which I do not desire or aspire to anyway. And as many a person who has known me my almost 59 years know (and still care) I have made decisions as a after thought were not the best. But no one can deny me of the fact that I at least chose to do something. And while sometimes, well, many times I feel on my very ample derriere', I got up. Sometimes I had to sit there and catch my breath or my bearings, I got up. And was able to at time sashay, saunter, strut or at times very carefully so move ahead.

In fact, just in the last few days I've enjoy an amazing amount of liberation. Knowledge is so powerful. Not only the knowledge that can be intellectual, but the kind that reaches into the very marrow of your bones. It is mighty nice, to put it nicely. Actually it is at least metaphorically speaking one of those "I wanna go to the mountaintop and scream it to the world" but shan't not because this baby is for me.

And it is a groovy kind of love.

I am good with it....

Somewhere and I know now where it happen, when I turn over the keys to my life, but now I have repossess my vehicle and in the driver's seat. And now ready to rock & roll right on over all the packaging that once was my ally and now has slowed me down.

I am a visual artist/poet, mother of 3, grandmother of 8, embarking on returning not only back to New Orleans my home, but also ready to re spark my career, my world and my identity.My sabbitical is over, I will no longer be in a self imposed exile.

I will indeed have even bigger, joy to the world totally realistic that it won't always be joyous all the time as this is not how cycles go. But that even as Anthony Robbins said recently on Good Morning America "We are in the winter right now", I have to add "spring is coming an with it rebirth, regrowth, re-sparking!


"Hard times and funky living can season the soul, true enough, but joy is the yeast that makes it rise".~Ruby Moon

Now how cool is that!

How the Monkey Saved the Fish

The rainy season that year had been the strongest ever and the river had broken its banks. There Were floods everywhere and the animals were all running up into the hills. The floods came so fast that many drowned except the fortunate monkeys who used their proverbial agility to climb up into the treetops.

They looked down on the surface of the water where the fish were swimming and gracefully jumping out of the water as if they were the only ones enjoying the devastating flood. One of the monkeys saw the fish and shouted to his companion: “Look down, my friend, look at those poor creatures. They are going to drown. Do you see how they struggle in the water?”

“Yes,” said the other monkey. “What a pity! Probably they were late in escaping to the hills because they seem to have no legs. How can we save them?” “I think we must do something. Let’s go close to the edge of the flood where the water is not deep enough to cover us, and we can help them to get out.”

So the monkeys did just that. They started catching the fish, but not without difficulty. One by one, they brought them out of the water and put them carefully on the dry land.

After a short time there was a pile of fish lying on the grass motionless. One of the monkeys said, “Do you see? They were tired, but now they are just sleeping and resting. Had it not been for us, my friend, all these poor people without legs would have drowned.”

The other monkey said: “They were trying to escape from us because they could not understand our good intentions. But when they wake up, they will be very grateful because we have brought them salvation.”

The moral of this tale is easy to see.

While we sincerely think our intentions are good and honorable ones, we need to be mindful that we are not projecting our way as the only way on someone else. At the very least give the other person the courtesy of asking their permission with respect not condescension, if our help is needed before rushing pell mell into something that end up hurting them rather then helping.

Of course there are exceptions as in if a hurtling 2-ton truck is barreling down and death is immanent, then you act first if its in your power. But most of the time when people "help" it is not of immanent danger, but more of meddling of feeling our own discomfort at someone's expense.