Wonderful You

August 25th, 2014

You are better than you think you are. You are amazing, wonderful and undeniably terrific. You are caring and loving and honest. You are spiritual and in love with beauty and nature. You want to alleviate the suffering in this world. You want to help people,especially the young, avoid the pain you have felt.

So why does life seem so terribly hard at times? Mostly it is because you have forgotten the truths in the previous paragraph. You have forgotten the truth of who you are.

Sometimes life collapses from a bright, cheerful fire down to a tiny glowing ember (never further) and all seems darkening. It is only the breath of your gratitude that can turn that glowing ember back into a beautiful blaze again. That’s right, it is your gratitude for everything else in the world that sets your world right again. Once you acknowledge the beauty and love out there you will see the beauty and love inside you.

Practice, train yourself to see the good in this world. Look for the weddings and the birthday parties and the births. Look for the babies of every species and marvel at the adorableness.

Look for love everywhere and you will always find it somewhere.

Yes, you truly are better than you think you are and the world is better than you think it is. There is so much beauty and love in each and every day of our lives. Look for it outside or look for it inside but for Heaven’s sake never stop looking.

(c)2014 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com

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Poop

August 18th, 2014

Pick a fresh sprig of rosemary from an herb garden and rub it in your hands. Feel the texture. Smell the strong scent. Think about what a wonderful creation it is. Next, pick up some dog poop from the street and rub it in your hands. Feel the texture. Smell the strong scent. Think about what a wonderful creation it is.

What? You don’t want to rub the poop? You would rather deal with the herb than the poop? The herb makes you feel good and the poop makes you feel, well… icky and yucky? Of course it does! And your choice is a brilliant one!

Yes, there is a fair, sometimes unfair, amount of poop in our lives but there is also a fair amount of beauty and love.Why then do we dwell on the thoughts of the yucky stuff in our lives instead of the beautiful? We dwell on the poop because we see all the “bad” stuff in our life as a mistake, something to be fixed, something to be overcome.

No one can change the past. The poop you stepped in a long time ago is gone. Why keep refreshing it in your mind? It happened. Life went on and that poop doesn’t exist anywhere except in your own mind. You can’t go back and not step in it. You can only go forward with a little more awareness and better thoughts.

Today you have a choice. Are you going to focus on the poop or the rosemary? When you lay your head on the pillow tonight and say to yourself this was a sweet day or this day really stunk, we’ll know which one you chose.

(c)2014 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride

www.PatrickInspires.com

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Robin Williams

August 13th, 2014

I usually post my daily Sundrops here for you and on Facebook for others to read. Today I will post only here, for you. I want you to know something about me and something about Robin Williams. I first met Robin in 1979 in a nightclub I was managing. It was called Xenon and it was in NYC. Robin and I hit it off right away and we laughed at each others jokes and shenanigans until many a dawn. He was the funniest person I had ever met. Often I would have to feign a bathroom break or just walk away from him so that I could massage my jaw muscles that actually ached from laughing so hard and so long. He would meet me at the club towards the end of the night or we would hang out in the vip rooms of various after hours clubs where it mattered that you were special but conversely nobody really cared. Robin was always “on”. He would only rarely ever turn it off. One night in the vip lounge of a club called Crisco Disco, we started to talk about death. There were a few jokes but when I confided to my friend that I had attempted suicide several times when I was younger, he became serious for a moment. He said that he totally understood and that there were times when the depression was so overwhelming that “you just felt like you were being dragged into a shredder and it was better to take your life than to endure the pain that you knew was coming”. I stared at him after he said it and I thought to myself “He gets it”. He was one of the only people I knew at that time who understood. Our relationship went to another level that night. We remained friends for a while until business, life and his divorce and his work separated us.
I don’t tell you this just to say I knew Robin but to tell you about the depression we shared. I have read so much about how all his money and fame couldn’t save him. How it would have been different if he knew how much he was loved. How it would have had a different outcome if he had someone to talk to. NO! Robin said that it was like being dragged into a shredder and he was right. When you are being dragged into the dark bowels of a shredder you don’t think about what you have or who loves you. It doesn’t matter if someone is there to talk to you or to listen to you. All you want at that moment is not to go into the darkness and pain again.
Please understand that suicide is a choice that some people see as their only option. NOTHING matters more than escaping that pain. Robin loved his family more than you could ever imagine. He would never, ever want to see them suffer in any way. The pain on Sunday blinded him to anything but the pain itself and this time, the pain won. If you suffer from depression or if thoughts of suicide repeat in your mind, know that the time to work on it is now and now and now. The shredder will claim others but it doesn’t have to be me or you. We can lean on each other and learn from each other and we can search every single day for those tools that make us stronger. Depending upon our choices of food, sleep, meditation, spirituality, exercise,openness and a myriad of other options, we will live to love another day. I pray that all of us will live many, many happy days and that the shredder one day will cease to claim anyone. May Robin be the last. Love and Blessings, Patrick

 

Adapt

August 11th, 2014

The first couple of steps into the lake, river or ocean water seems cold and uninviting. Interviewed at that exact moment you would complain that it wasn’t conducive to enjoyment.

What happens next? You go out even deeper. Maybe you take a deep breath and plunge in all at once. Suddenly filled with a feeling of exhilaration you feel alive and exuberant. Soon you are swimming and playing and enjoying. Everything is perfect, in fact very enjoyable. What happened? You kept going and you adapted.

Life never goes backwards. Our thoughts however do it more often than most of us would like especially when going forward seems uncertain or possibly uncomfortable. What happens then? The slightest spray of water sends us into a quick backlash. We become overly sensitive.

If we had kept going into the water not only would we have eventually enjoyed ourselves but we would be undaunted by a small spray of water anytime afterwards.

Therein lies the golden secret of an enjoyable life. Keep going! What may seem uncomfortable in the beginning could be the start of a great adventure. If you keep going you will adapt.

If the new job seems too hard. If the new people seem difficult to work with. If the challenges in front of you seem cold and uninviting, keep going! You will adapt and before you know it, you’ll be enjoying yourself. Yes, you are that strong.

(c)2014 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride

www.PatrickInspires.com

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Hero

August 4th, 2014

There is no doubt whatsoever that there is an incredible amount of pain and suffering in this world and there is no doubt whatsoever that you would like to alleviate all of it. Sometimes you feel almost driven to help someone.

The fact is you have helped and continue to help at every opportunity. You have been there for people who needed you. You have used your money and time to make life better for someone else even when you didn’t have much or when it was earmarked for something else.

In other words, you are a hero. Now what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you read that sentence? It doesn’t resonate. Right away you probably adamantly deny that you are a hero. You have a much bigger mental picture of what a hero is and it doesn’t look anything like you.

This has nothing to do with pride, false or otherwise. This has to do with the truth about you. Look how far you have come. Look at the obstacles you have overcome. Look at the tears that you have shed. Look at the struggle that life has been for you on occasion. And now look at you today. Even with all that hurt, you still want to help others. Even with all that pain, you can still feel the pain that someone else is experiencing.

You are definitely a hero. You have gone through fire and come out stronger than steel and yet you keep your heart tender and open. You have been hurt but you don’t intentionally hurt others. It’s time you gave yourself credit for being there for people. It’s time you gave yourself credit for the strength and guts it took to get this far in your life.

Stand a little taller today. Smile a little more confidently today. Look at yourself with a bit more praise than criticism today. Help where you can today and admit, at least to yourself that yes, you are a hero. A cape is optional.

(c)2014 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride

www.PatrickInspires.com

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