Live out LOUD!

It's time out for living for tomorrow when today is staring us in the face! None of us can add an hour to our lives by worrying, and it goes a step further to explain that each day has enough trouble of its own and that we should live in the present. You guys, there are no words to communicate how profound and important this is. If you are one of those people waiting for "when" to come, PLEASE let that go in 2009. You can not spend your life waiting for "when" or holding out for some undisclosed time in the future. You have an infinite number of gifts and resources around you NOW...enjoy them! Seriously, what are you waiting for?


I know that we all have goals that we'd like to achieve, and we have things that we're expecting. I totally understand the need to plan for the future...I'm the QUEEN of planning and organizing. There's nothing wrong with having hope today for the fruition of plans made for tomorrow. However, it's not healthy for us to neglect our gifts, talents, and blessings with the anticipation that the future will somehow present a better "time" to employ those things than right now. God did not put your life on layaway!!! You're supposed to be loving the people around you...RIGHT NOW. You're supposed to be using your gifts...RIGHT NOW. You're supposed to be living out loud...RIGHT NOW. Not later. Not tomorrow. Not when you get yourself "together"....RIGHT NOW. Believe me when I tell you that if you are holding out, you are doing a disservice to yourself and to the world.


Having a vision for our future that differs from our current circumstances can be inspiring and exciting, but it can also keep us from fully committing to our present placement. We may become aware that this is happening when we notice our thoughts about the future distracting us from our participation in the moment. We may find upon searching our hearts that we are waiting for some future time or situation in order to self-actualize. This would be like a flower planted in North Dakota putting off blooming because it would prefer to do so in Illinois.

There are no guarantees in this life, so when we hold back we do so at the risk of never fully blossoming. This present moment always offers us the ground in which we can take root and open our hearts now. What this means is that we live fully, wherever we are, not hesitating because conditions are not perfect, or we might end up moving, or we haven't found our life partner. This can be scary, because we might feel that we are giving up our cherished dreams if we do not agree to wait for them. But this notion that we have to hold back our life force now in order to find happiness later doesn't really make sense. What might really be happening is that we are afraid to embrace this moment, and ourselves, just exactly as we are right now. This constitutes a tendency to hold back from fully loving ourselves and those around us, as we are, where we are.

We have a habit of presenting life with a set of conditions—ifs and whens that must be fulfilled before we will say yes to the gift of our lives. Now is the time for each of us to bloom where we are planted, overriding our tendency to hold back. Now is the time to say yes, to be brave and commit fully to ourselves and the love in our lives, because until we do no one else will. Now is the time to be vulnerable, unfolding delicately yet fully into the space in which we find ourselves.


Tomorrow is not promised. If someone loves you today, love them back! If you have a delicious meal today, savor it! If you have an inspiration today, act on it! If you want to achieve something, do it! Sometimes the very blessings we hope to receive in the future are in front of us in the present. We dig unnecessary holes for ourselves pushing people and things away with hopes that the future will yield some magical transformation of perfection. There is no such thing as the perfect time to do something and there never will be. The perfect time is always NOW.