While it might be easier and feel safer, to be around those who are similar, its the ones who think, live, look and believe differently than we do, that provide the best opportunity to learn, grow and deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Spending time with those who’ve lived different experiences than we have or, are older, or younger, have different educational, cultural, religious and political backgrounds, can help us become more open minded, patient, empathetic, and generally better, kinder, well-rounded individuals, and, may help us live more interesting and peaceful lives.
The strength and support we can offer each other doesn’t always come from our similarities, but from the unique, and interesting things that make us different.
Our differences shouldn’t divide us, they should spark our curiosity and, make us a better, kinder and wiser collective humanity.
See these two perfect, little souls? They might be destined to be the best of friends and love each for the rest of their lives, until somebody tells them not to.
We’re born as loving, kind, compassionate beings. We come into the world wired for authentic soul-to-soul connections and a natural curiously about our differences, we’re not born to fear them.
Society teaches us how to judge, hate, fear, shun and mock others. But, that’s not who we are. We’re born to be better than that, so, let’s BE better than that.
Once upon a time, there was a family of 7.2 billion people running around their little blue village trying to change each other and beat each other up. No one really knew why.
Each new generation picked up where the generation before had left off, mocking, shunning, shaming, judging and attacking their family for their different beliefs, social status, gender, sexual orientation, alliances, traditions, looks and well, just about anything.
While they could have been building a beautiful village together and caring for one another, instead, they wasted time blowing things up, destroying the village, hurting each other, even going to war with each other over their differences.
Then one day a group of children within the village decided “this is dumb” we’re not playing like this anymore. And they didn’t, and over a few generations the family began to heal.
They still had disagreements, but now they worked through them with curiosity and without judgment or causing each other significant harm.
Soon the family began to realize they were supposed to be different. It was their differences that made them stronger, healthier and collectively wiser. They saw that when they lifted each other up, and listen to each other‘s perspectives, they achieved more together then they did apart.
No, they did not all live “happily ever after”, but they did survive and live “better ever after.”
That’s it. The End~
**I don’t want to look like you, be like you, think like you, have the same hopes, dreams or goals as you. Those things belong to you, those things are a part of your journey.
The only thing we should be the same at, is accepting and loving each other as we are; and, embracing the notion that; ~we’re supposed to be different, it’s our differences that give us our collective strength and collective beauty.
I’m gonna’ love your beautiful, messy, weird, little, soul, just the way it is and, love my own weird, messy, little soul the same way.
On days when you don’t have it all together, just wing it; the hair, the lipstick, life, everything!! If you’ve got coffee(and maybe a dog),everything’s gonna’ be alright. 🤗☕️🐶 Toni ❤️
To surrender does not mean marching into battle and surrendering to your enemy. It means, mindfully making a decision, trusting you’ve made the right decision, then, having the courage to accept the outcome and the consequences.
When we fully surrendered to life we’re able to;
~ take on new challenges and follow our dreams, without the interference of ego, trusting and accepting we’re where we’re meant to be, even if that place is painful.
~ to let go of the need to be in charge, control an outcome, prove we’re right, or attempt to be better than anyone else. Rather, we seek to be better than we were the day before.
~ to recognize we’ve done all we can, we’ve put forth our best effort, given it our all, and then, we allow life to unfold as it’s meant to unfold.
The ability to surrender takes enormous courage, patience, and wisdom. When we surrender, we’re trusting, accepting and loving our self, exactly as we are.
Surrender is perhaps the most mindful, expression of courage and self love a human being can display.
Drop your sword. Let go of the people, things and attitudes that are dark clouds blocking your beautiful light.
Life is more peaceful when we surrender and stop seeing everything as a battle.
It’s easy to be in awe of the beauty in nature. Multiple shades of green draped over a forest. The way bold colours melt together to create a sunrise or sunset. The twinkle of stars, the fragrance of different flowers painted in every colour imaginable. The beauty of ocean waves rolling in and out leaving beautiful polished stones and shells behind. Tall grass dancing with the wind, song birds singing, clouds creating illusions in the sky. We appreciate and love all of it.
What if we looked at each other the same way, in awe of how beautiful, brilliant, colourful, twinkly and different we all are?
If we accepted one another no matter how we looked, sang, danced, rocked or rolled, wow this would be one happy peaceful, planet of twinkly, bright, dancing souls. 🌟
My wish for each of you is LOVE. Real LOVE. A Love that is kind, respectful, comforting, brings you joy and extends beyond a single day, a box of chocolates and some roses each year.
I wish you a LOVE that allows you to feel safe and secure in who you are and inspires you to grow into the best version of yourself. A LOVE built on soul-to-soul connections, with no expectations, only an enduring appreciation, acceptance, respect and admiration for the beautiful, perfect and unique soul YOU are.
But more than that, I wish YOU a LOVE of self, where YOU see yourself as worthy and deserving of all that is beautiful and good. A self-LOVE that allows YOU to be kind and gentle with your heart as you surrender to and inhale, this epic journey called life. A self-LOVE that offers you the absolute knowing you are a beautiful work in progress, a perfect heart under construction and an amazing, magical, being destine to do great things, even if they’re small things. And with this perfect LOVE flowing around you, I hope you reach into the world, sharing all that you know and make the world a better, softer, gentler and more loving place to be.
Yes, that’s the kind of LOVE I wish for you – not just on Valentines day, but every-single-day.
I love this girl. She used to be shy, afraid of the world, and worried about what she might become.
I’d like to go back in time, give her a hug and whisper in her little ear; “You’re perfect just as you are. There’s going to be some storms and you’ll face them. You’ll get lost now and then, but you’ll always find your way back. Every once and awhile you’ll forget who you were meant to be, but then you’ll remember and you’ll be fine. Everything’s going to be okay.” ❤️ I’m grateful I got to be her when she grew up. ❤️ At times, life seems to inches along so slowly and you don’t realize how far you’ve come or how much you’ve grown. Then, you turn around and wow, it hasn’t inched along at all. Time has flown by. You’ve crossed oceans, navigated storms, trudged through some muck, fought some battles, have a few scars, climbed mountains, seen some breathtaking vistas, met amazing people and covered a lot of ground. And damn, you should celebrate all that.
Take time to look back, reflect and remind yourselves how far you’ve come. You might be surprised to find, you’ve come a long, long amazing way baby. So, Cheers to you! 🥂❤️
The Whimsey Angel 