Synchronicity

A glimpse from the mailroom in the As You Are exhibit. – Chicago, Il

“There is no such thing as chance; and what seem to us merest accident springs from the deepest source of destiny.”
-Friedrich Schiller

If you have a moment, I want to talk a little about synchronicity. It is the natural flow of energy through our lives when things feel particularly connected. Examples: You have had a life long dream to skydive, and you hear an advertisement on the radio. Or You feel like having an apple, and your dad stops by with some extra groceries, including a 3 lb bag of apples. Or right now I am looking at a 3 legged pig figurine given to me by my dear friend Christine. I smile at it. It reminds me of her and makes me think I should give her a call. 5 minutes later, as I am still working on this post, Christine sends me a text. I love moments like this, don’t you?

Here is what I wanted to point out, synchronicity is the natural flow of energy, meaning this is the way life happens on its own. When things feel stressful or discombobulated, most of the time this is because we get in our own way, either not listening to our intuition or blocking the flow by focusing our energy on negative areas in our lives. When we are following our bliss as Joseph Campbell often talked about, things are more likely to fall into place

The other day I was watching a report on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday about an artist named Matthew Hoffman and his You Are Beautiful project. Here is the basic idea, Matthew wanted to send a simple message to the world, You Are Beautiful just as you are. No need to pretend to be someone else. He wanted to spread the message by creating simple stickers with the message You Are Beautiful on it. First he gave them to friends, then more people started asking for them so he created a website where people could buy them. Guess what? It spread like wild flowers. People began taking pictures of the sticker with the simple message all of the world and sending them to Matthew. 10 years later the project has snowballed into much more than he imagined and the stickers have been everywhere from the Great Wall of China to Antarctica.

I loved the thought behind this project and when I found out that an exhibit showcasing the decade of You Are Beautiful was being held in Chicago(Talk about Synchronicity!) I knew I had to go see it. The exhibit was fantastic! I loved it so much that I wanted to pass on the ideas to you guys.

I hope you are having a lovely Sunday and may you have a week full of synchronicity.

Much love, Marjon

The Thirsty Fish

Koi at the Museum Of Contemporary Art – Chicago, Il.

“I have a thirsty fish in me
that can never find enough
of what it’s thirsty for!”
- Rumi

“Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it.”
— Ella Wheeler Wilcox

“Amongst the madness…Love does work. BELIEVE IN YOUR LOVE!”
-Anonymous

“Follow your bliss.”
-Joseph Campbell

I believe we live in an environment of inspiration all of the time. I think what I call LOVE/GOD is in everything including us if we just learn to see it. So many times though we get disconnected from that truth and see things through different eyes, the eyes that see the world around us as a challenging harsh scary place. Things happen that do not make sense, that rock our foundations of security and we are thrown off track. I see so much in our environment that steals our energy, negative story after negative story that is repeatedly teaching us to be afraid. So much pressure to be successful and achieve that we forget to ask why we want to do that in the first place. What is it I am supposed to be doing here? Today? Tomorrow? The rest of my life? And so we learn to feel stress, maybe a little at first and then over time, we learn to think that stress is normal and we should expect it. Let me let you in on a little secret, STRESS SUCKS. Ok, maybe not such a secret, but then why do we act as though it is a condition we should learn to put up with?

I will tell you that it is not. STRESS is a glaring sign that you are disconnected. Deep down you may know this already because we do not feel good when we are in distress and we in turn are drawn to ways to feel happy. Sometimes though, We look for the answers in all of the wrong places. We look for them in relationships, making someone else responsible for our joy or flip the coin and blame them for our suffering. We look for it in our jobs, so many of us focusing all of our energy in something we do not love or believe in and then feeling depleted at the end of the day. We look for it in addictions, from shopping to food to substances. We are looking to escape from the world that drains our energy and find some outlet to turn our light on. I know looking for the good in painful times can seem so absurdly illogical. However maybe it only seems absurd because the reality being presented to us is so skewed towards the negative. We all are in search of something to believe in, some hope that the reality we see is not the full truth.

A better way exists. I have not figured out most of the answers but there are some things I have learned and one of them is that feeling love trumps everything else. Sad? LOVE helps. Stressed? Booyah! Love eases that. Mad as hell? LOVE LOVE LOVE. Now before I lose you to the idea that I am on some Pollyanna high, life is not always easy/happy. For some reason, we need the harsh times to help break us down so we can be built back up to a truer version of ourselves. However that does not mean we need to be bombarded with harsh times and my friends does it not seem like that is the case sometimes? Who doesn’t want a bit more joy in their lives?

I for one want to see more love in this world and I will do my part to help change the tipping point. We need places to go to help rejuvenate our energy, to be reminded that we are surrounded by inspiration, in fact you are surrounded by inspiration right now wherever you are reading this. There is a quote by the poet Rumi that talks about the thirsty fish. I LOVE THIS THOUGHT! Not only would it make an awesome bar name, but it is a perfect metaphor for what I am trying to communicate. A fish is surrounded by water by its very nature. The thought of it swimming around(IN WATER!) breathing in yet again more water and then searching for something to drink is laughable. Open your eyes fishy (irony on top of irony it does not have eyelids), water surrounds you. It is in you as we speak! We are no different. We are thirsty, many of us desperately thirsty for passion, joy, purpose, inspiration, something more than what we currently see. Remember when I said I believe inspiration surrounds us? LOVE/GOD is in everything. IT IS IN US, we just need to take off the fish eyes and start to see the truth and I think having more places that show us that truth might help. Here is what I am going to do. I am going to work on making some adjustments to MOMENT2SMILE so it can better serve its purpose and will let you in on those changes as they come closer. In the mean time though, I am going to magnify the good that I see so you can see it too. Maybe if you see love and inspiration you could share it with me so I can pass it on? My intention is that if more people see the love, more people smile, then the more people will notice it in their own environment and we will have a few less thirsty fish in this world.

For now, I hope you have a fabulous day.

Much love, Marjon

Every New Day Is A Chance to Live What You Love

Sunrise- Munster, In

“Every day is a fresh beginning, Every morn is the world made new”
-Sarah Chauncey Woolsey

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”
-Seneca

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are”.
- John Pierpont Morgan

Come What May

Trees buried under Mt. Baldy sand dune. -Michigan City, In.

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.”
-William Barclay

“The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.”
-Charles Dickens

“Come what may, all bad fortune is to be conquered by endurance.”
-Virgil

“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.”
-Buddha

Voice

Frog- Hobart, In

The human voice can never reach the distance that is covered by the still small voice of conscience.
Mahatma Gandhi

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs

Never give up. And most importantly, be true to yourself. Write from your heart, in your own voice, and about what you believe in.
Louise Brown

From First Glance

Baha’i Temple- Wilmette, Illinois

In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.
-Maya Angelou

Do you believe in love at first sight? Personally, I am not sure what I believe but I know that I love hearing stories of love at first sight. I can remember tales from my best friend’s grandparents about the moment they first saw each other. I knew them for years and every time, her grandpa would say, he knew from the moment he laid eyes on grandma that she was going to be his wife. And he wasn’t all talk either, you could feel it when they looked at each other from across the kitchen. Even after 50 years, you could still feel it in their gaze. That gaze said it all. It is not just grandpas & grandmas either. My friend Christine has an amazing story that I have talked about before regarding finding true love with a handsome surgeon at an Indiana rest stop. I love meeting people like this, hearing their stories, believing their love for each other. They not only give me that warm & fuzzy feeling I have grown quite fond of, but they give me hope that AMAZING LOVE exists and is not some fable that should be filed away with unicorns and leprechauns.

I would like to tell you a little story, if you have the time. It starts of course, with a heroine. I am not going to name names (It’s me) but let’s make her unbelievably charming, adorable, curvy, brilliant, heart of gold and why not throw in humble? Now, our heroine has a challenge before her as most main characters do. She is working on a big school project. Now for multiple reasons, we find her down to the wire on this assignment. She needs to start kicking things into turbo mode and to do that, she needs a place of solace, a haven that includes some workspace, free wi-fi and why not throw in some baked goods? One day, our heroine stumbles upon one such utopia, you might call it Panera Bread in your neck of the woods. And eureka, our story begins.

Multiple times in a week, we find her typing away on her laptop, reading articles, typing some more and yes, if you must know, eating cookies. This goes on for a couple of months, day after day in the same corner, same table(It’s by the electrical outlet), until one Monday comes her way. She thinks it is any other Monday folks, but I will tell you a secret, it is not. Can you picture her? She is sitting at her computer, finishing a sandwich and a double chocolate duet cookie(Yumm). Her eyes move from the article that she is reading to her computer, focused with a sexy determination(author reserves the right to remember story as she sees fit), until someone comes over to her table and picks up her dishes. I look, uhh, I mean, she looks up from her work and sees the most adorable BIG BALD TEDDY BEAR (BBTB) of a man. (FREEZE FRAME: Do you know what a lazy second is? It is a second that seems to take a tad longer than the rest of its buddies. Time stops for a brief moment and then carries on as if nothing happened so that you wonder if it really happened or if it was just in your head. Understood? Good, lets insert one of those here. Carry on.) Now where were we? Ahh, yes, eyes meeting each other, time pauses, and the moment is passing, hurry,think of something to say! Thank goodness our heroine is quick on her feet and says something amazingly suave like, “Thank you”. He smiles, nods and walks away. BUTTERFLIES! People, am I right in saying that butterflies in your tummy are in the top five world’s best feelings? You know the feeling when you find someone you instantly like? Not sure what it is about them but there is just something, possibly but not necessarily including a bald head.

Now folks, I may not have mentioned this before but I have a soft spot for bald heads. I like them on babies and I like them on men. So much so, that all of my close friends are well aware of my feelings, and will tell me when a potential bald suitor has come into view. (Bald man at 12 o’clock). One such friend was phone called on this fateful day. It went something like this… “Christine, there is a bald man working at panera! We may have a new crush! ” “Ooooh tell me more” And so began the first of many conversations regarding BBTB.

It is funny to look back on that moment now. Remember the first moment I saw him. Remember how pleased I was that a cute bald man was carrying away my dirty dishes (a subject I like to remind him of as I persuasively build my case that dishes are his duty). Remember that in a moment, our heroine did not know what had hit her but she knew it was better than the double chocolate cookie and my friends, you know that is saying a lot. Maybe I do believe in love at first sight, I know for sure I felt that way about the double chocolate cookie when I laid eyes on it, why not a BBTB?

Much love until next time, Marjon

The Crew I Run With

St. Louis Arch

Today, I thought we might do a quick activity together. I promise, it will only take a few minutes and all you need is you. Ready? (if its ok with you, I am going to imagine a throng of cheering people right now (o;) Here we go.

Step 1:
Think about that type of person do you want to be: Adventurous? Successful? Kind? Funny? Intelligent? Healthy? Spiritual? There are countless choices available to you, just pick the ones that stand out the most to you and fill in the blank. Take a moment to picture your ideal self in your head right now, no pressure, I will wait…still waiting…(and now I have begun to hum patiently) Oh you got it? Good.

Step 2:
Take a look at the people in your life. Your crew. Your peeps. Your family. Your mentors. Your coworkers. Basically the people that you spend the majority of your time with and choose to give your energy to.

Step 3: Do they match up? Meaning do the people that you choose to give your energy to also have some of the characteristics on your super self list? They should. The people in our lives are our teachers. Sure sometimes you get the crabby teacher who should have retired 10 years ago but for the most part you want your teachers to challenge and inspire you. You want to learn from them so that you can grow and become the best you possible. It is doubly hard to fulfill your dreams if you are in an environment that is clouding your vision or even worse, draining your energy. If the crew you run with does not support, lovingly challenge, and excite you then it might be a good idea to examine those relationships a bit more closely.

If your environment does not match your dreams, start to seek out people who you can learn from, people who have achieved what you want to achieve. Read books, articles, attend lectures, join clubs, listen to podcasts, go wherever you would go if you had already achieved your goals, and your community will follow. The wonderful thing about the connectivity of our time is that almost everyone is in reach in some form or another, so go find people who are living the life you want to live.

The old adage that you become who you surround yourself with is one I believe in. You want to lose weight, start hanging out at the gym. You want to change the world, start learning from those who have made a difference in it. We do not make real change on our own. We get there with the help of others. If you do not see the change you would like to see in your life, then maybe looking at your present relationships is a good next step.

Hope you are well!

Much Love, Marjon