Keeping it Real

Posts Tagged ‘Inspiration’

Recent events in life allowed me to reflect on life and consider paths that I didn’t think I would ever have to consider.  It has certainly been an interesting journey… er, rollercoaster!

One thing I discovered along the way is that it’s extremely important to know all you can possibly know about the most important person in your life… YOU!  What makes YOU tick?  Ask yourself the following questions and let me know your thoughts in the comment section below.

7 Questions Everyone Should Ask Themselves…

• Who is the most important person in my life?
  If the answer to this question is anyone but YOU, reconsider your answer.  Are you present for YOU?  It is anything but selfish to ensure that you have taken care of you first.  Everything in your life, your relationships, your career, your family, and so much more, depends on a healthy and happy YOU!
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• What do I love about me?
  We all have our faults… believe me, I have my fair share.  But, what do you love about you?  Write down 20 things that you love about yourself… those things that you are proud of, that make you who you are today.  Embrace those qualities that you love about yourself and remind yourself of them often.
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• What do I want out of life?
  Ask yourself what you want out of life.  Are you making a living at something you truly love doing?  Are you excited about waking up in the morning?  Are you taking the steps necessary to achieve what you want or making excuses for why you ‘can’t'?
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• What am I grateful for in life?
  Everyone has wonderful in their lives… create an attitude of gratitude and list the wonderful in your life.  It’s difficult to be focused the negative if you’re focused on what you’re grateful for.
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• What inspires me to take action?
  What gets your juices flowing to the point that you feel like nothing can stop you?  Immerse yourself in that which inspires you… is it literature, art, music… is it relationships… is it pets… is it a quiet evening staring at the stars?  Treat yourself to that which inspires YOU!
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• Do I give myself credit when credit is due?
  Do you have a strong self-esteem or self-worth?  Only YOU can claim your full worth.  The perception you have of yourself will influence how those around you treat you, how they perceive you – a low self worth or self-belittlement is likely to attract those who will treat you the same way.  Release negative thoughts and other influences on YOU!  CELEBRATE YOU!
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• Do I choose to live happy?
  Happiness is a choice.  You can choose to live happy by understanding YOU!  Invest the time and energy in yourself that YOU deserve.  Everything in your life starts with YOU.

Taking time to step back and consider myself first - understanding what makes me tick – helped me understand not only what I wanted out of life but how to go about achieving it and, most importantly, how to be accountable to myself.  What makes YOU tick?  Leave your comment.

Sincerely,
Darren Sproat

I am happy to welcome, once again, Kelly Karius, from Karius and Associates, as a guest contributor on Keeping it Real.  Your comments are welcome and I encourage you to connect with Kelly.

From the Heart

It’s hard to speak from the heart sometimes. But that is often exactly what needs to be done in order to have healthy growth in our relationships. To really put your innermost thoughts into words takes a bravery that can be developed…with practice.

The practice path…

• Understand that your thoughts are not dysfunctional. Our thoughts develop in conjunction with our experiences. Experience…thoughts…more experience…reinforcement of thoughts and belief…that’s how it works. Your thoughts are exactly in line with the experiences you have had in your life.
• Attach feelings to thoughts. Our thoughts are not far separated from our feelings, but often times we are unsure of what it is we even feel. If you need some ideas and inspiration about feelings, keep a list of feelings handy. A very quick google search will bring you to something like this > Feelings.
• Speak from the heart to YOURSELF about yourself.
• Understand your hopes and dreams about the situation. Understanding what you want to happen in a relationship, job or project will help you be able to express it more clearly.
• Use a neutral sounding board before approaching someone about a heart to heart talk in order to be sure your thoughts, intentions and understandings are clear.
• Examine the worst case scenario. Remember that no one will ever eat you for expressing your innermost self.

Leave your thoughts on this!

Contributed to Keeping it Real by:
Kelly Karius

Kelly Karius, an expert in conflict dynamics, intervention, management and resolution, has a wealth of knowledge and experience ready to tap. Kelly helps people build positive relationships, both at home and at work. An accomplished keynote speaker and trainer, Kelly delivers seminars that are informative, comfortable, engaging and motivating. Her “Taking Control” Conflict Management Seminar has even been called “life-changing.”  You may choose to view Karius and Associates or follow her on Twitter

I have been fielding a lot of questions regarding when I will be writing for the blog again.  Those who know me know that there’s little in the world that could take my attention away from those things I am passionate about…

That is, until a possibility to relight the flame of one of those past passions presented itself. 

My attention, most recently, has turned to reigniting the passion with my ex-wife, Cheryl Sproat.  Her and I have known each other since the fall of 1988… I knew there was something special about her the moment I met her.  I wasn’t sure what it was at the time but I can say, today, it was her smile, her laugh, and her attitude of loving life, family, friends, and so much more no matter what came at her.

We would hang out occasionally as we shared some mutual friends.  I remember meeting her with a friend at the mall on my 17th birthday.  Not long after that, I found the courage to ask her if she would go to a movie with me.  It was December 3, 1988, I was nervous, I wanted her to like me as more than a casual acquaintance… She said yes and we decided to take in Mel Gibson’s latest at the time… ’Lethal Weapon’.

There started a wonderful friendship that gradually grew into an incredibly amazing, inspiring, and loving relationship.  We would spend more and more time together until it became pretty clear that you wouldn’t see one of us without the other…

We got married on August 3, 1996 and immediately wanted to start a family.  We both very much wanted to be parents.  The problem, we discovered, was that it was very unlikely Cheryl would ever be able to get pregnant naturally.  There is a long story there but I can admit that through it all we were each other’s rock.  With a little help from In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Cheryl was able to get pregnant.  Later in the pregnancy, we found out we had been blessed with twins, one boy and one girl.  We both thought our perfect little family was all there.  Her pregnancy was ‘textbook’ as far as a multiples pregnancy goes.  Finally, on September 5, 2001, along came a beautiful, healthy little girl, MacKenzie.  Our boy, Michael, would not make it through delivery and is now MacKenzie’s guardian angel in heaven.  For more on MacKenzie and Michael, see: He is in our Hearts, Daddy.

There’s no doubt MacKenzie’s birth and Michael’s passing changed our lives…there’s something about becoming a parent that is so empowering and right…and there’s something about losing a child that is so deflating and wrong.  It wasn’t long after MacKenzie was born, however, that my relationship with Cheryl changed.  We, as a couple, were merely existing instead of really living.  Before, circumstances rarely determined our attitudes or moods and we lived and loved to the fullest.  With MacKenzie a part of our lives, we both felt incredibly blessed… what an amazing addition to our family that little miracle was.  During this period, however, life had become so routine that we felt we were merely taking up space, simply existing.  We were both very present for our daughter, of course, but something was missing in us.  Something wasn’t right.

Tensions between Cheryl and I grew and we began living our lives separately… not physically separate but emotionally and spiritually separate.  We recognized this and passed around the idea of engaging couple’s counselling or other means of working our way through what I considered to be a bump in the road.  I thought we owed it to ourselves, each other, and our amazing little girl, to work as hard as we could to reignite the passion we once had for each other.

It wasn’t long before we recognized that our hearts simply weren’t in it and we thought we would have to separate in order to build a positive home(s) for our little girl.  I remember thinking, “How could I love so deeply someone who refused to love me back.”  Cheryl and I separated and commenced our lives apart.  MacKenzie, although very disappointed, was quite resilient to all the changes going on around her.

I have some pretty amazing friends and family members who supported me through so much of the rollercoaster that has been the last 2-3 years of my life.  With their help, I didn’t allow the changes going on around me to influence my happiness.  I’m not going to say I didn’t have any sad days or that a bitter or resentful thought never went through my mind, but, thanks to amazing friends, an amazing employer, and an amazing family, I was able to focus my attention on what mattered.  I could focus on me and ‘create my little piece of happy’ along with building a positive, supportive home for my daughter and I.  At the same time, Cheryl was able to identify for herself who she was and wanted to become.

There were some very trying moments.  There was finger pointing and threats.  There was mistrust.  I refused to allow bitterness or resentment to become a routine in my life and chose to focus on that which I was grateful for… there was so much, afterall, to be grateful for.  I didn’t allow additional financial commitments or other personal and professional challenges to change who I wanted to be.  I can’t say I wasn’t hurt because I was… I had put everything into my relationship with Cheryl.  What I can say, however, is that I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself and certainly didn’t want others to feel sorry for me.

Late in the summer, perhaps early fall 2009, I was dropping my daughter off at Cheryl’s place and something occured to me.  I had REALLY let go.  I spoke breifly to Cheryl and shared with her that I hoped she could find the peace she was looking for, that I wished for her only the very best, and that I had let go.  I shared with her that our success as a couple will not be measured by the failure of our marriage but by how we choose to raise our little girl… I shared with her that I had forgiven her and I asked that she forgive me.  I told her that, for as long as she would let me, I would be her friend.  I told her that her happiness is a decision away.

From that moment forward I recognized a change.  I didn’t know what it was or even if our previous conversation had anything to do with it, but our communications from that point forward were less stressed.  When we did talk we smiled, we laughed… we started sharing little pieces of our lives with each other again.  Both of us had been ‘dating’ if it could be called that and both of us had released each other and, as importantly, ourselves from the burden of our failed marriage.  Most of all, however, we both gave the other the space we needed to really determine who we wanted to become.

It was a cold day in January when we met so I could drop off some of MacKenzie’s things.  I had picked up a few coffees and we sat in my truck enjoying some conversation and laughs.  I looked at her and told her that I was proud of how we had grown past the bitterness and the next words out of her mouth would introduce another major change in our lives… she said, “Yes, Darren, we make a pretty good team, don’t we?”  There was something in her this cold morning that I hadn’t seen in years, something warm… it was a smile, a REAL smile!

I don’t think I could pinpoint when things started feeling right again… or, for that matter, FEELING at all.  But, we made great strides together when we found it in ourselves to forgive and move on… to release ourselves and eachother… to stop feeling sorry for ourselves… to focus on ourselves first.

Today, Cheryl and I are back together.  The passion has returned, the feeling has returned… it wont be easy rebuilding our lives, we recognize that, but we have a renewed commitment to each other and a renewed lease on our relationship.

I wish to thank all who regularly read and contribute to this blog.  Your many comments, e-mails, and contributions are true blessings and I am looking forward to many more.

Leave your comment and stay tuned…

Darren Sproat

Posted by Ms. Tausha.  Ms. Tausha is a regular contributor on Keeping It Real.  You can find her on Twitter and YouTube.

The other night I was on the phone with a good friend of mine who is also in the music business.  I recalled our previous conversations when we first began networking. When he would refer me to certain people to get things done he would tell me, “My name is your leverage.” Simply by affiliation, I would be able to gain access to certain people and areas I otherwise would not be able to gain access into.

The following day, after our conversation, I googled my friend’s name just to see what new articles were out there about him; there were pages and pages of articles, interviews, etc. On a whim, I then googled myself; to my surprise there were pages and pages of things that held MY NAME. At that moment, I came into full realization of something: first and foremost, my “leverage” is the name of Jesus; there is no other name that will open up doors for me. Second, I have FINALLY come to a place in this journey called life where I’ve found ME. I stand on my own. Before Christ, I strived to develop relationships with certain types of people. For instance, the types of men I wanted to date were always the ones who had a popular name; everybody knew them; every woman wanted them. I believed that my identity was found in the people I surrounded myself with. When I was at an event where I was meeting and greeting different people, I would introduce myself as being affiliated with that person; it was never just, “I am Tausha”, it was always, “I am Tausha, so and so’s friend.”

Do not get me wrong, I do know there are people that God has placed in my life to assist me in accomplishing what He wants me to accomplish in this earth; however, those people are sent by God. I no longer desire to seek out relationships with certain people in order to appear important; in order to feel like I am somebody. As I received this revelation in my heart, I was absolutely blown away! The power, the prestige, the identity that I so adamantly sought out in those men I have right here in me! And it’s been in me, I just had to realize it. Through Christ, I am all of those things that I was trying to get from a man. It isn’t found in any man, it is found through Christ in me.

With this revelation has come a whole ‘nother level of confidence in God, as well as in myself. As Paula White says, “If you don’t know who you are, you don’t know what you can do.” I can now proceed being fully persuaded, that God can and will do everything He has ever promised.  With this in mind, you can proceed the same way. It doesn’t matter who you’re affiliated with if you’re not “affiliated” with God. Everything in the earth is His, and the fullness thereof (Psalm 24:1). Think of it this way: Donald Trump is a very powerful name in this world. If you were good friends with Donald Trump, you would gain access into places you may never get to on your own. Now, referencing the aforementioned scripture, think of how much more you will gain access to if you are good friends with God! Everything is His!  Knowing who you are starts with knowing who’s you are.

Sincerely,
Ms. Tausha

It is important that we work towards our goals in life… personal and professional goals and aspirations… we’ve all heard that we need to keep our eye on the ball. 

Past experiences, especially less than favourable ones, contribute to fears and serve only to put perceived barriers in front of us.  These ‘limitations’ can prevent us from staying focused on our goals and put us into a state of accepting mediocrity.

But, for some, staying focused on some future end-result can be overwhelming at times also.  Sure, we all want to achieve goals and aspirations and achieve a certain level of success.  We know that if all we think about is past failures we are likely just putting ourselves into a state of inaction.  The same can be said, however, of focusing to far into the future… to live only in that end result takes our focus off the now.  A big goal, no matter what it is, can be daunting to think about if it’s not broken down into achievable steps that we can focus on today… steps we can take right now to get us that much closer to our goals.

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” 
~  Robert Brault

It’s true.  For me, personally, I know that if I have a particularly big goal in front of me that focusing only on the end-result can overwhelm me and force me into a state of procrastination and making excuses… or it can take me out of the present moment and result in my absence to what is going on around me.  If instead I focus on the little steps I need to take right now, and I take action to achieve those little steps, then I can be satisfied at every moment that I am getting closer to my goal while staying present for myself and those around me.

“Develop an appreciation for the present moment. Seize every second of your life and savor it. Value your present moments.” 
~  Wayne Dyer

Appreciate the small things in life and take action on the steps necessary to achieve your goals.  You will live a m0re fruitful life and achieve beyond your imagination if you learn to savor the moment you’re in.  Furthermore, living in the now allows us to sieze opportunities as they unfold right in front of us…

“It would be incredible if we all lived every moment as if to create a memory we could cherish for a lifetime.”
~ Darren Sproat

photo credit: PrASanGaM