May 23rd, 2016
Drama is a over exaggeration of a life event. Sure it looks great on the big screen or stage where we often recognize in the actors that which we can’t see in ourself. Take for instance a play where a child disappoints a parent and the parent reacts as if they have just lost the will to live.
How many times have we blown out of proportion our reaction to an innocent or an off handed remark? How many times have we given an oscar worthy performance when we felt ignored by someone we love? How many times have we become even more dramatic when we are told that we are being too dramatic?
There is no place in our life for personal drama. All it shows is that we have lost our faith in being able to explain our reaction to an event in words from our heart. Just like spanking seems so much more efficient then taking the time to talk and educate, drama too is a non-loving response.
We don’t get into personal drama because it feels good, quite the contrary it feels more and more draining the longer it goes on. Sure, in the beginning it seems clever and warranted but as it grows it starts needing lies and exaggerations to keep it from becoming transparent. Our voice, our demeanor and our posture must also fall in line with the farce.
There is no way to stop the personal drama of others but there is every possibility of ridding yourself of this toxic reaction. Resist the temptation of personal drama. Embrace reality. Embrace the facts. Speak your feelings after you have centered yourself. There is no need to ever become an actor in your relationships. Over reacting is not communication. It’s a ploy to manipulate another person.Be you, wonderful, compassionate, loving you. Drama on the stage is for entertainment. Drama in your personal life is a childish form of communication and there’s no oscar for that.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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May 9th, 2016
Do you like leftovers? A day or two after a meal they still taste good. In fact, sometimes they taste even better. Well then how about the leftovers of a really terrible meal? A day or two later they probably taste worse if possible. Would you partake? Of course not.
A really bad meal can’t be forgotten but do you dwell upon it? Weeks from now will you still be seriously thinking about it? Will it define all of your cooking and eating experiences? Will you stop eating because of what happened? Of course not.
When something goes sour in our life, a job, a relationship, a project, a dream, a move, it’s just like that bad meal. It seemed like a good idea to eat it but it turned out to be a bad decision. You feel bad for a while maybe even a long while and then it’s over. You learn to be a little more cautious and you put it behind you AND YOU MOVE ON.
The bad meals in your life are not the norm. The bad days in your life are not the norm. We have a tendency to let a bad day turn into a bad week by constantly bringing it to mind and mentally reliving it. We wouldn’t constantly think about a bad meal we have had every time we sat down to eat. Why not? Because it would taint the meal we are about to eat. Similarly, by replaying a poor decision we made in the past we taint the day in front of us.
We can never forget what we have experienced but we can choose the mental movies we replay. Some will make your day and some will ruin it. Choose wisely. There are ALWAYS better thoughts to think.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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May 3rd, 2016
We may never touch mortar and brick but we still build walls. We build walls around our past transgressions. We don’t want to be reminded nor do we want anyone else to see them. We build walls around our heart so that no one may enter and hurt us. We have been hurt in love and that is where we were most tender so that wall must be the strongest of all.
We build walls around our perceived weaknesses. We are assured by our mind that someone will take advantage of our weakness should they see it. We build walls in front of us so that our view of our inevitable demise will be hidden from us. We build walls against the unknowns in our life, against all that is in conflict with our beliefs and comfort.
What do we get with all these walls? Security? Contentment? Stability? Hardly. We are more anxious than ever. Life cannot be stopped. It will find a way over, under or through any wall we build. Like the flower that grows in a crack in the sidewalk, life will get through.
Don’t all these walls offer some protection? No. Our mind sees it as protection but the truth is that all we are creating with all these walls is a maze and the more walls, the more difficult the maze. No wonder we feel lost at times. So, what’s the answer?
Tear down your walls. Come out from behind them. Bare your body, mind and spirit to each day. Greet life with open arms. Embrace it. Let your resistance to life dissolve in a bright, iridescent pool of gratitude and love. Yes, you are opening yourself to the good, the bad and the ugly parts of life but you will be 100% alive.
Physical death will find every one of us some day. Will it find you cowering behind your dark, damp walls or will it find you out in the sunshine enjoying every moment? Security is an illusion. Living is a gift. Dismiss the illusion and open the gift.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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April 4th, 2016
Starting this Tuesday one seventh of your life can instantly become better. You will be in a better mood. Your immune system will improve. Your outlook on life will be enhanced. Your relationships will suddenly shift. All in all you will be happier.
This week you and I and hopefully a couple of thousand of our Sundrops group will change one seventh of our lives. We will better our own lives while at the same time we will make a positive impact on those we live with, those we work with and all those we come into contact with each Tuesday.
The secret to this amazing shift in our lives is called NCT or No Complaining Tuesdays. Each and every Tuesday from the moment you wake up until you go to sleep that night, NO complaining! No complaining about the weather, the sleep you had or didn’t have Monday night, your aches and pains, in other words No complaining, No exceptions.
Some Tuesdays will be more difficult than others (Election Day is a Tuesday!) but with practice you can do it each and every Tuesday. Make yourself notes. Put it on your phone, on your to do list. Tell your friends so you can hold each other accountable. Do whatever it takes to remember not to complain on any Tuesday.
It starts tomorrow and you are the leading edge of this wave. If you didn’t read this today then it starts the next Tuesday from whenever you read this or hear it from a friend. Let’s make Tuesdays special. Let’s make our lives at least one seventh better.
No Complaining Tuesdays!!
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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January 11th, 2016
What is a loveless relationship? A loveless relationship is a rose bush that lives but never flowers. There may be some caring and concern but if love (there are no substitutes) is missing what is the purpose of being in a relationship? What is the purpose of wanting flowers with their beauty and intoxicating scents and settling for just green leaves?
We are not just talking about marriage here. Loveless relationships are everywhere. Children and parents, grandparents, teachers, friends, coworkers are all relationships and sadly some are loveless.
Let’s get one thing straight, you deserve love and it’s out there. It may not be where you are right this minute but it exists. When a person has been dying of thirst, they will drink the most toxic water just to alleviate their thirst. Don’t do that! Don’t run off with the first toxic person who espouses love. Wait for LOVE.
There are relationships that we are entrenched in such as parents and children for example but there is a way to get what you want regardless of your situation.
Firstly, make yourself attractive. No, not makeup or muscles. Loving yourself, loving life, loving God, loving your body, loving the sun, moon and stars and all the puppies and kittens and everything else makes you very attractive.
Secondly, like attracts like. If you are filled with love you will attract and be attracted to loving people. When you start complaining about a lack of love, you drain the love you have and you become less attractive to loving people and more attractive to drained people who complain about a lack of love.
A rosebush needs to be tended to often and it needs to be fed what it needs to blossom. Feed yourself with a positive expectancy and a positive outlook. Tend to yourself often and bloom, bloom, bloom.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
(c)2016 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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December 28th, 2015
“The new year is almost here and I can’t wait. I just wish it were here already. Don’t you?”
Uh, NO!
“WHY???”
Because today is the gift I just opened. I want to sit with it, explore it. I want to open my heart and my mind to it. I want to be here, to be grateful and to be aware of every minute of it.
I have no fear or love of the new year simply because it’s not here yet. I would not step out into a chasm now because there was going to be a bridge there in a few days. I want to savor what is here now. I don’t want to be eating my lunch and discussing what I want for dinner. I want to enjoy every bite of my lunch and to be grateful for the taste, the nutrition and everything that brought it to me.
I don’t want to start thinking about the weekend on Monday. I don’t want to think about Monday on the weekend. I want to tell you I love you so that you will feel my love in this moment and not because you will remember this moment in some future.
When we hug it could be the last hug for either one of us. I want to be there when we hug. I don’t want any part of my day to be on auto pilot while I go rummaging around in the past making believe it was different. I want to go out and feel today’s sun and not sit inside fantasizing about the possibility of next summer vacation’s sun.
I want today, right now, to be forever. I want to walk slow enough to take it all in. I want to eat slow enough to taste every bite. I want to hear the music and the words. I want to love so slowly that every moment is ecstasy.
Don’t live today as if it were your last. Live today like it was your only day and you had the power to do anything.
In a few days I will wish you a Happy New Year but right now I want to wish you a happy today. A today that is so deliciously slow that you don’t miss a thing.
Patrick McBride’s Sundrops On Life
November 16th, 2015
What are you going to do about the atrocities and the injustice in this world? Are you going to tweet about it? Are you going to condemn it? Change the color of your profile? None of this changes anything!
In our quest to make symbolism synonymous with substance, we put up another rainbow or pink or tricolored bumper sticker or touching post and consider it done. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When we see a child starving on the other side of the world we can’t reach out with a sandwich but we can look around our circle of acquaintances and see if they or any member of our immediate community is hungry and feed them.
When we see people killing other people through some warped sense of beliefs we can’t shield them from harm but we can take an objective look at our beliefs and see if our beliefs have estranged or even hurt those we profess to love unconditionally.
When we see racial or economic subjugation of a people we can’t ride in on a white horse and save them but we can start responding to the cashier the same as we would a professor and begin to treat people as equals in feelings and needs.
When we see the sick and the infirm we can’t just wave a magic wand and make them healthy but we can look at ourselves and take inventory. Are we living the healthiest life we are capable of living?
We are all connected as living beings but that doesn’t mean we are all the same. Tolerate those who are different but never tolerate those who are hurtful.
We can’t help everyone individually BUT we can help the whole by being better at everything we do. A glass of pure water makes a polluted lake a tiny bit better. A sticker saying that we believe the lake shouldn’t be this bad does nothing.
Be the best you can be. Be conscious of the needs around you. Add to the light in this world with every word that comes out of your mouth. Add to the peace in this world by being strong. Add to the healing in this world with a good example and a supportive attitude. Add to the betterment of this world by striving to be better on every level. Above all, walk in beauty and gratefulness for that alone makes a difference.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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October 26th, 2015
You are not great and maybe you never will be great. Blasphemy! Cruel! Horrid! How could you say such a thing?
The fact of the matter is that we are all pretty average. AND THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT! I’m so tired of hearing and reading “experts” lie and say that everyone can be great and wealthy and problem free. It just ain’t so.
So many people today have low self esteem and are upset with themselves because they can’t get rich or they can’t manifest great things. They feel like failures because they “only” have a regular job. They have a three star life and they feel like failures because it isn’t a five star life.
The unhappiness you feel after all the seminars and all the CDs and DVDs and workbooks and workshops haven’t produced greatness is misplaced. You learned a tremendous amount from all your searching and you learned or will learn at some point in time that it’s okay to just be you.
You don’t have to be better than anyone else. You don’t need great wealth. You don’t need to be any better than you are right now. You don’t need to be skinnier. You don’t need to be more popular. You just need to be satisfied with you. That and a bucket full of love and gratitude will get you through this life very well.
In this life you will find people and animals to love and who will love you back. You will always, always have an opportunity to make someone else feel loved. You will have good days and bad days. The good days will make you smile and the bad days will give you something to talk about.
There may not be Oscars and yachts and embassy balls in your future but if you can look at yourself in the mirror and say “Yes, It’s Okay” and mean it, you can have a peace that escapes most people. Fill your life with love and… Just live.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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October 13th, 2015
Years ago when we had checkbooks instead of credit cards, my Aunt Mary, God rest her soul, wrote on the inside of her checkbook the words Is it necessary? Every time she wrote a check these words would ask her to think, to be present, to consider her action. Several times I saw her write the word void in big letters over a half written check.
In these days of a quick swipe, there is little time to ponder our financial choice but there is one instrument where control and presence can still stop us from wasting. It is our phone and yes, we can make purchases on our phone but the waste I am talking about is not the waste of money. It is the waste of your presence.
When you take a picture or video of something you are saying that your future enjoyment of a record of what you are watching is more important than the 100% attention you could give now. Telling someone about what you saw and felt is so much more alive than showing them a picture of what you saw through the lens. When you look up something rather than asking for an opinion of those around you, your world just got smaller. When you listen to music rather than the sounds around you, you are being entertained. That shouldn’t be confused with actually being present.
There is a definitely a time for pictures and information and music but it’s not all the time. Write or tape iii? somewhere on your phone. iii? stands for Is it important? When you pick up your phone let iii? ask you to think, to be present, to consider your action.Is your phone more important than your presence with another person? Is it a filter between you and what is happening? Is it important? Be present and choose wisely.
I think Aunt Mary would have liked that.
(c)2015 All Rights Reserved, Patrick McBride
www.PatrickInspires.com
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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
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