“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” - Henry van Dyke 
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How has the love in your heart led you toward eternity?
 

“Learning is a daily experience and a lifetime mission. I truly believe in the saying ‘We work to become, not to acquire.’” - Bill Russell 
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How are your work habits leading you to become?
 

Four Ways to Actively Reprogram Your Thoughts
 
 With ten minutes of daily meditation, I’ve been able to see my otherwise unobserved thoughts for what they are: passing flotsam. Although I’ve sidestepped boatloads of negative emotions, lately I’ve noticed the same obnoxious thoughts assailing me year after year. 
Our personality is not cast in stone in childhood; the brain is highly reprogrammable at any age. When judgement or negativity comes up, it means our internal dialogue is off.
 Here are four methods you can use to train yourself to think and feel anything:
 
Number 1: Tony Robbin’s Priming Method. Tony Robbins says emotion is created by motion. A change in your physical “state” will change how you feel. Here is how it works:
 A. Sit down with your eyes closed and raise your hands above your head.
B. Breathe heavily in and out through your nose for three sets of thirty breaths.
C. On each out breath, pull your arms downward, making fists.
D. After three sets, feel gratitude and self – love.
 In the resulting state, you can easily plant healthy thoughts and beliefs in your mind.
 Number 2: The Demartini Method. Dr. John Demartini also uses neuroplasticity to reprogram the brain. When questioning a challenging situation, question the situation itself and ask what good comes from it. Look for the benefits, because there’s always at least one. Seeing the good can help you drop unhelpful beliefs quickly.
 Number 3: Affirmations. Over time we can become set in our ways. Our subconscious is the factory that generates many of our thoughts – positive and negative – and can be reprogrammed not only with strong emotions but also through repetition. Affirmations lodge new operating instructions into our subconscious. Tony Robbins bridges the gap between repetition and emotion. His “incantations” are affirmations done with explosive emotion and conviction.
 Number 4: Visualization. Visualization works like affirmations to rewire our neurons and attract the thoughts and feelings we want. If you consistently visualize yourself reacting to challenges with calm and compassion, you will manifest this behavior. Take time each day to visualize yourself having the emotional resilience or the positive beliefs that you want. With even five minutes of daily practice, you will start to see powerful changes.
 Have patience; you’ve got this.
 
 From the article: 4 Ways to Actively Reprogram Your Thoughts by Michael Pietrzak – January 3, 2017 – Success Magazine

“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in.” - Haruki Murakami 
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What will you look like when the storm is over?
 

“Education breeds confidence. Confidence breeds hope. Hope breeds peace.” - Confucius 
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How does your learning lead you to peace?

“Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.” - Socrates 
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How are your habits showing others your worth?
 

“To have striven, to have made the effort, to have been true to certain ideals – this alone is worth the struggle.” - William Penn 
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What effort have you made to remain true to your ideals?
 

“Commitment separates those who live their dreams from those who live their lives regretting the opportunities they have squandered.” - Bill Russell 
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How committed are you to living your dreams?
 
 

“You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame.” - Erica Jong 
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How has personal responsibility caused you to grow?

The American Revolution and the French Revolution began only 13 years apart, inspired by similar human liberty and justice ideals. Both were instigated and led by dedicated patriots.
Still, for all the similarities, the "Sister Revolutions," as Susan Dunn, a professor at Williams College, dubs them in her book, quickly diverged. Once liberated, Americans created a nonviolent democracy. The French result was the so-called Reign of Terror, and protracted internal turmoil. The result was the dictatorship of Napoleon.
Professor Dunn finds that part of the difference in the result is based on national history differences. Americans had gained political experience as Colonials, while the French, developing under an absolute monarch, were political novices.
The most succinct analysis may come from the era itself, from Gouverneur Morris, the U.S. Minister to France. His observations can be applied to leaders today. In 1790 he said that the French "have taken Genius instead of Reason for their Guide, adopted Experiment instead of Experience, and wander in the Dark because they prefer Lightening to Light." 
​Think about that when you vote on November 3.

From: Leadership...with a human touch October 31, 2000, Pages 17-18     

“I slept and I dreamed that life is all joy. I woke and saw that life is all service. I served and I saw that service is joy.” - Reinhold Niebuhr 
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How has your service toward others brought you joy?

Grandma’s Thimble
 
 I marvel at the way God knows when to send a special gift of encouragement to us, at just the right time! It might be in a dream, a lost letter, a memory, something found that we'd forgotten about, or something in His Word during a devotional that really speaks to us.
 
My Grandmother was from a town in the thumb area of Michigan. Summer after summer I enjoyed staying with my grandparents as a young child. I was from the City and loved the small town they lived in. People knew everyone, their kids, their pets, their ancestors. The bond with them continued to grow as I grew and got older.
 
Grandma was always using her hands for something exciting ... she would make little sandwiches and we'd have tea parties, she'd plant flowers and carefully tend them. She'd knit afghans for her grandchildren as well as making beautiful quilts for each one. I remember the small thimble she would use while doing her needle work. Placing her thimble on her finger she'd remark .... 'I wouldn't want to sew without one.'
 
A few years ago, when Grandma left this earth for her new residence in Heaven, I bid farewell to a loving Grandmother. How quickly our lives can change. We had just had tea together a couple of months earlier, on her 91st birthday. I missed her very much, but I noticed it mostly on a birthday, as there was no card from Grandma. She'd never forgotten my birthday! 

On one particular birthday when I was feeling a little low and a lot older, something happened to make me feel like she was sharing that special day with me. I was arranging some colorful pillows that she had made, and suddenly I felt something inside one pillow, it was small and hard. I moved the object to a seam that I carefully opened, and to my delight out came a tiny silver thimble!
 
How happy I was to find something that had been a part of her. Not realizing it had fallen off her finger, I pictured her sewing it in that little pillow that I just 'happened' to fluff, to place on my bedspread that day. I carefully laid the thimble alongside the others I've collected over the years, where I could continue to see the gift God chose to reveal to me.
 
What a precious memory of a very special lady who somehow, I knew, was laughing in delight at sewing her thimble inside my pillow. I heated the tea kettle and made some tea, using my best china, as Grandma always did, and enjoyed my tea and Grandma's thimble. What a wonderful birthday that was!
 
 
Written by Diane Dean White

“All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me. You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” - Walt Disney
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How has adversity strengthened you?

“Character is destiny.” - Heraclius
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What does your character say about your future?