July 27th, 2015
Where is your happy place? Where is that place that when you bring it to mind, a smile parts your lips, that “ahhh” feeling permeates your whole body and you relax into a little bliss?
Maybe it’s a place from your past. Maybe it’s a place you want to experience in the future. Maybe it’s a fantasy place. Whatever and wherever it is, it is the key to better thoughts and better feelings. It’s the thought that improves your mood in just a few seconds.
If I asked you to visualize cutting a cold lemon into quarters and putting one of those quarters into your mouth and tasting the dripping juice, you would start to pucker and salivate. Why? Because the thought in your mind directly influenced how your body responded.
We can’t control every thought that comes into our mind but from time to time we can think better thoughts. We can hold a thought that actually improves our mood, our outlook and even our immune system.
Go to your happy place as often as you can. See it in as much detail as possible. Enjoy it for a moment or for several minutes. Think of it as your own mini vacation, no reservations required and enjoy!
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
July 20th, 2015
Imagination is one of the strongest tools we have in creating the life we want. But imagination has a dark side too.
Imagination is creating a scenario in your mind. Every object whether it be a toothpick or a skyscraper started off in the imagination of someone who then paired it with action and Voila! a toothpick or a skyscraper or anything else.
Sounds like a wonderful, creative force filled with infinite possibilities. So where is the dark side of imagination?
When we look into our future and use our imagination anything and everything is possible. BUT when we look into our past and use our imagination nothing other than what actually happened is possible.
The dark side of imagination is in trying to create a different past. The past is written and not one letter can be changed. It is the journey of a fool to use imagination to envision a different past. “What if I had said this or done that differently?” ” What if he did this or she did that?”
The past is done, done, done! Every moment you try rewriting it, you lose a precious moment of being able to actually create a better future.The past holds no more possibilities. Be done with it. If you can’t see the past as it actually was, don’t go there!
Imagine your best future. Stand tall and always look straight ahead. See with your imagination and paired with action, you’ll soon see it with your eyes. A better life starts right now in your imagination. Imagine that!
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
July 13th, 2015
What follows you around like a giant mosquito, always buzzing so you know it’s around and when you think it’s gone the familiar sting tells you it’s not? It’s guilt.
Some people feel guilty about everything regardless of whether or not they are at fault. “I’m sorry the ocean is so salty and it ruined our vacation” “I’m sorry that I didn’t know what you were thinking” .
Some people hide their guilt and walk around with a perpetual hundred pound weight on their chest. It doesn’t matter whether or not they were actually at fault. The only thing that matters in both cases is the perception that somehow it was their fault.
Guilt is a powerful feeling that can help us to change for the better or paralyze us into inaction. How can we see it in a positive light when we believe, right or not, that we did something wrong? Forgetting is an impossibility.
We hear about forgiving yourself but in order to forgive you have to take a higher position and pass an order of forgiveness to yourself. How can you take a higher position, in other words act as a judge, when guilt has laid you so low?
Guilt will weaken you and it can only be tamed one way. You have to become stronger than the guilt. If the guilt is pervasive “I’m sorry for everything!” you must rein it in and see it in the light. Is it really, really, really your fault? If so, take responsibility and apologize ONCE. If it is not your fault, stand your ground FOREVER.
We all make mistakes or we haven’t really lived. We cannot change one iota of the past. If you have done wrong, rectifying it is sometimes possible. Learning from it is always possible. Learn and move on. Get strong, not arrogant. Be the door that only allows love to enter and not the doormat. Be strong, wonderful you.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
June 8th, 2015
Love. Do we use the word too casually? Do we lessen the value of the word when we say things like “I love the color of that wall” or maybe “I love chocolate” or how about “I love the way that feels”.
Does all of this take away from looking into someone’s eyes and saying “I love you”? Is the word love now cheapened somehow by overuse or by using the word too often on frivolous things?
The truth is that LOVE is the most amazing word in the world. No matter the language, the word LOVE cannot be cheapened or overused. The word LOVE is a superlative. The word LOVE says that something or someone is due the highest praise. The word LOVE says that something or someone ignites a passion for a moment or a lifetime in us.
Use the word as often as you can. Use it in every situation. Look for places to use it. The more you focus on the word LOVE, the more you will stay close to the feeling of love. And if you are close to the feeling of love, life will have that special vibration that makes even the mundane feel special.
LOVE your chocolate, your car, your jammies, your hot showers, your coffee, your tea, your bed, your pillow, your couch, your food, your music, your yoga, your TV, your books, the ocean, the sky and everything else in creation. Then when you look into the eyes of a pet, a child, a friend, a loved one and you say “I love you” they will know that you are quite familiar with that word and you know exactly what it means. I love you.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
April 27th, 2015
What happened to your dreams? You used to bring them out, blow a little dust off them and look at them and see your future. It made you optimistic about the future and it made you happy. What happened?
People say “Oh, life got in the way” or “Reality finally set in”. Poppycock!! Your dreams are still there and they are still viable if you would be the least bit courageous and flexible.
Joe R. from Queens, New York wanted to grow up and play baseball, his first love. Joe decided at 63 that his dreams were long gone, expired, dust. With just a change in mindset of what is possible, two years later Joe moved to Florida and now “works” full time on the coaching staff for a minor league team. He says he can’t call it “work” because he’s having so much fun.
Margaret C. from Ann Arbor Michigan “knew” that her dreams were in the dustbin of the past. At 52 and single, her dreams of a partner and a place at the beach seemed light years away and not worthy of even fantasizing. With a change in mindset and action, Margaret didn’t wait for the beach and partner to come to her, she moved to the beach and found her partner.
Jackie A. didn’t have to move anywhere. Wanting so badly to be a fashion model, her dreams vanished in her tiny town far away from the runways by the time she was 24. At 29 with two small children, Jackie realized that her gift of drawing fashion designs brought her more pleasure than modeling ever could. A change in mindset and Jackie lived her dream.
Your dreams are not gone. They are a part of you and always will be. Dust them off, change any rigid ideas about their fulfillment and have the courage and flexibility to change. You are never trapped or set in your ways until you say so.
Go after your dream and every step, no matter how small, will inspire you and inspire all who know you. And if by chance you don’t believe you have a dream, today is a great day to start looking for one. There’s nothing that is beyond your ability once you change your mindset to “Yes, I can”.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
March 2nd, 2015
The record for deadlifting a tremendous amount of weight is 461 kg (1,016 lb) by Benedikt Magnusson set at 2014’s Europe’s Strongest Man competition in England. Magnusson trained every day for many years to accomplish this amazing feat. In 2012, in Glen Allen, Virginia, 22-year-old Lauren Kornacki rescued her father, Alec Kornacki, after the jack used to prop up his BMW slipped, pinning him under it. Lauren lifted the car, weighing over 3,500 pounds, off her father and saved his life. How is this possible?
Let’s talk about strength for a moment. Is it possible to be strong? Absolutely. What does it take? A few years, a good set of genes, proper rest, nutrition and exercise and you will undoubtedly be strong. But how do you get strong in a moment? No one can condense years of training into a moment BUT everyone can love more than they ever had in just one moment.
Love is the miracle worker. Love holds to no laws of physics, no rules, regulations or reason. We think of love as this gentle force that cradles a child and while it is that it is also so much more.
Love is your rejuvenator. Love is your source for unlimited strength. Love is your gift, your blessing. It is the greatest gift that you have been given. Stop looking for love. Stop chasing love. Start being love. Start tapping into this miracle energy. Start filling yourself with love. Kick out worry and frustration and agitation. Move in love. Live love. Lots of it!
Lauren Kornacki didn’t lift a BMW off her father because she had big muscles. She did it because she had a big heart filled with love.
Do you want to feel stronger than you ever have been? Love as much and as often as you can and then love some more. Find reasons to love, any reason any time. Focus on love. Eat, breathe and think love. Love is your gift. Open it!
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
June 10th, 2014
Everyone at one time or another asks themselves “What can I do for a living that will make me happy”? For some of us this question is a constant in our lives. Sadly, for a few, this question no longer surfaces because it has gone unanswered for so long. It is not that the question is unanswerable. It is that the question itself is wrong.
A farmer does not walk around with a handful of dirt looking for a seed to put it on. Such a quest would return quite little. A farmer realizes that walking around with a handful of seeds and finding a worthy patch of soil to put them in is the key to a bountiful harvest.
So too is our journey. We should not be looking for happiness, ever. The seeds of happiness are already inside of us. We were given these seeds at birth. Our purpose is to find a place to grow our happiness.
The right question is not “Where we will find happiness?”. The right question is “Where will we bring our happiness to in order to grow it?”. There are an infinite number of places and people that will be fertile soil for our seeds of happiness. Look around. Where do you want to bring your seeds to in order to grow your happiness?
Happiness is not waiting out there in some unknown location. We don’t just find happiness like some rare, exotic flower we just happen to stumble upon with a bit of luck. We grow it exactly where we plant it and if we don’t plant, we can’t harvest. Toxic people and toxic workplaces are not fertile soil. Pick good people. Pick good places. Bring the seeds of your happiness and watch them grow.
(c)2014 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
Facebook – Sundrops On Life
July 22nd, 2013
How do you get to feeling good when you are feeling bad? There are all kinds of people, germs, accidents and genetics that have a different agenda than making you happy. Sure, there are flowers and rainbows and wonderful songs and books and people but you can’t just tote them around in a backpack like some kind of happiness insurance.
We speak of the practice of music or medicine or meditation in order to become a good musician, doctor or meditator but what does it take to be feeling good? Practice!!
We love happiness. We revel in happiness when it appears. We pursue happiness as if it was the last bowl of ice cream on the planet. And we wait and we wait some more for it to show up again. Do we wait for education to show up? Do we wait for muscles to show up? No, we work at them. We practice. How do we practice feeling good?
First and most importantly, we start right now wherever we are and however we feel. Secondly, we commit to achieving a better feeling regardless of the stubborn voice in our head that tells us not to change course. And then we smile a small smile. A sincere, small smile. A smile that says we chart our own course. And then we smile a little bit bigger smile. And suddenly we feel the tiny flow of well being start up again. And then we tell ourselves that whatever is going on, IT’S OKAY. We don’t have to like it and we may want to change it as fast as we can but regardless, IT’S OKAY. We can handle it and we can handle it with the mood of our choosing. That’s incredibly powerful! That’s incredibly doable! That’s incredible you!
(c)2013 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
April 15th, 2013
(You have a voice!)
“What’s wrong?” The answer to this question will change your life. Maybe.
When you are asked; “What’s wrong?” your typical first response is: “Nothing.” Why do you have this quick, patented answer? Is it because you believe that your “stuff” isn’t important. Is it because you believe that you already know the response and where it will lead? Or maybe because you don’t want to rock the boat? Or do you believe that the other person can beat you or belittle you with the volume of their voice or their command of semantics or debate?
Whatever the reason for saying “Nothing” it is a lie if you truly feel something is wrong and lying always diminishes your self worth. It takes guts to tell the truth. It takes guts to not sugar coat your response. It takes guts not to preface your answer with cowering phrases like “You probably won’t agree but…” or “I might be totally wrong but…” or ” I might just be crazy but I…” or “You’ll probably get mad if I say this but…” and all the variations.
Speak up anyway! If you feel something is wrong, speak up! If you feel you have been abused, speak up! If you feel someone has treated you badly, speak up! If you feel that you are being cheated, lessened, cheated on, demeaned, ridiculed, belittled or hurt, speak up!
It is very important to remember that as you speak up you get the courage to continue. Great courage never comes before you speak. When you speak up you are righting a wrong. When you speak up you are honoring your own personal integrity. When you speak up the feces may come in direct contact with the oscillating blades but you will have stood toe to toe with your biggest fears and said “Get out of my way. I’ve got something to say!”and a bigger, better you is born.
(c)2013 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
February 25th, 2013
(Are You Offensive?)
Last year I was pondering on how bad I am at the game of chess. People always remarked how hard it was to beat me but in the end they always won regardless of how well I fought. It finally dawned on me that I spent all my time and energy on being defensive and little or no time on being offensive and actually winning. A huge “AHA” moment was on the verge of appearing.
Did this have greater implications in my life? Was I running my life like I play chess? Was I making sure that nothing bad happened to me and my family but not going for my dreams? Was I spending all of my time defending what I had instead of going for the score?
If you have ever watched a football game and seen the defense score a touchdown, you probably watched a huge celebration in the end zone. See, the defense doesn’t usually score. That’s not their job. If they just stop anything bad from happening, they’ve done their job. BUT that’s not all there is to winning. In order to win, you have to score. You have to put yourself out there and take a chance on getting tackled or maybe screwing up and fumbling. In other words, in order to win you have to go for it and risk failure, risk being criticized, risk being mocked, risk… well, everything.
Ask yourself, “Am I defending what I have or am I going for what I really want?” You can spend your entire life on the defense and just maybe you might get lucky and score OR you can get offensive. You can say “To hell with fear and the voices inside and outside my head that say I can’t make it, I’d be a fool to try! I’m on the offense now! I am going for the score!”
Whether it’s chess or football or life, you should play to win. No one will remember how well you defended what you had but generations will remember that you were brave enough to go for the win.
(c)2013 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com