“Forget what others can’t see… Keep rising” – Lynika
Have you had someone tell you that what you have going is a nice little case of ‘Hobby’ when in fact you’re working at your craft/business with all the oomph and resource you can muster?
I’ve had a number of folk ask how to keep their faith when another or ‘others’ (sometimes those closest to them) simply don’t recognise or respect the effort and dedication they put in day in and day out as credible.
Often it’s the result of nay-sayers looking through a sole filter of monetary visibility and exchange.
In other words; if there’s not a wage-worth of cash coming in as a result of your efforts, then it can’t be taken as a business, just a ‘hobby’ and you really aren’t contributing in any grown-up, ‘realistic’ way.
Sometimes the negative feedback is a result of the ‘onlooker’ being unable to grasp the depth of work and effort you’re putting in simply because they cannot physically ‘see’ it.
With certain types of work, particularly with artists, (of all genres) the effort behind the product or performance doesn’t show up regularly or quickly in physically viewable ways.
I read a quote a number of years ago on observing the creative, it went something like this: “Trying to watch the creative at work, is like trying to view an invisible horse eat invisible hay”
You simply can’t ‘view’ the alchemy and effort that’s taking place inside the creative mind at any given time.
And if your work isn’t in the arts but never-the-less your efforts and the business you’re growing has been diced, sliced and served back to you on a judgement platter with a side serving of scoff, this inaccurate labelling affects you too.
Building a business takes blood, sweat and tears that mostly take place behind closed doors, and the results can’t be sized up accurately with anyone else’s yardstick.
Just because something isn’t measurable or hauling in thick cash bundles just yet, it doesn’t mean it’s okay for anyone else to minimise it or your efforts as some little ‘hobby.’
This sort of judgement is not only discouraging it can be disorienting. It takes enormous amounts of courage to believe in a thing that others can’t see…
It takes even greater character and fortitude to keep building and working on it, despite nay-sayers and a less than immediate return cash flow.
It’s easy to be the one pointing the finger, this much is clear.
Virginia Satir was right; “We mustn’t allow other peoples limited perceptions to define us”
You’re the one in the ring showing up round after round and no matter what comes at you in that ring, you need to also be calling to yourself from the sidelines like a coach.
Don’t allow anything or anyone that doesn’t support or grow you, to distort the truth, shake you up, or mess with your head.
Pick yourself up and remember the truth…
You’re a freaking legend and what you bring to the table is not here to ‘qualify’ by first checking the boxes in someone else’s ledger.
Against the odds of a world that has been conditioned to believe that money and proof of productivity are necessary to make a thing of value, you rose like a phoenix with your ideas, dreams and goals and showed up.
Forget what others can’t see and keep rising.
You’re a visionary. This world needs what you bring. Keep going.
Take up space, holler while you’re driving, or running in the wind; breathe all the way out, laugh loud, make sand, leaves, or carpet angels (who needs snow?).
You are meant to be here, you have a right to take up space on this planet.
Live in all your bones. We NEED you. Be proud of yourself, exactly as you are, this minute, this moment.
YOU are freaking awesome, you amazing miraculous, breathing, feeling, worthy being.
Please share this with anyone you know who is breathing… we all need moments where someone sees us and celebrates the amazing miracle we are, just as we are.
~Lynika
How to survive…
“Live your life in new ways…
Climb out via the other side of the bed each morning.
Don’t reach for your phone, let your soul come back all the way first.
Notice small things, kneel in the garden, watch the tiny worlds living amongst the grass.
Remember how your heart beats for you each day, take deep breaths in return.
Work in a different room or corner of your home.
If you don’t work or you work for someone else, carry a stone or scrap of paper in your pocket with something valuable written on it.
It can be a quote, a word, a wish, your name…
Remember your world is bigger than 4 walls and it calls to you.
Eat outside.
Help someone.
Love the miracle of being here, alive, playing yourself for a short time on this magnificent stage.
Love your character. Write it new lines.
Remember to let it laugh, weep, dance, fall down, get up, love.
Think outside the old lines.
Don’t stay in one repeat episode.
Walk into new rooms, make new chapters.
Own your life.
Occupy it.
Our time here is brief.
Live it wild, w i d e, open and deep.” ~ Lynika Cruz
“If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you’ll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you’ve already been in.” ~ Anne Lamott
Pssst… Look around you…
Life is happening right this second.
This very moment right here, right now, is where you are actually ALIVE and living.
We spend so much time thinking and planning ahead that we sometimes don’t realise we have accidentally abandoned our current life and moved there.
Moved to a place that doesn’t have solid, earthy goodness filling you up and sweet, present, ecstatic joy slapping you in the face with a big, happy kiss.
Planning ahead is important but be careful not to live there.
We lose precious moments on words and half sentences like these:
Meanwhile those lost moments accumulate and turn into days, then weeks, months, years until one day you realise…
“These moments are my LIFE.”
Go outside for a moment, really. Get up, look out the window if you’re in a blizzard or heatwave, but LOOK out there, look at life, it’s happening right now around you and TO you.
The loose leaf, the sudden dot of a small bird lifting against the sky, the rustle or stillness of this very moment and your own heart beating in your chest, right now. THIS is living.
And it’s happening NOW.
Be happy in it.
Satisfied even…
Take one small moment if you will and just LOVE it.
Turn it over for a brief second and say out loud, in this moment, this very moment I’m alive and I am noticing it and feeling it.
Now breathe and breathe and breathe.
Life is brief…
Live it W I D E and DEEP… you gorgeous, magnificent, amazing miracle!
~ Lynika Cruz
“You never know just how precious life is until you see or hear of someone losing the fight for theirs. This moment right now is your life…
As you read this quote you’re holding delicate moments of your own life in your hands and spending them.
Make sure you treasure each priceless, fragile, powerful moment.
Spend them well. Every single one of them is your life.” ~ Lynika Cruz
“The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don’t help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don’t increase you will eventually decrease you.
Consider this: Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problems with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don’t follow anyone who’s not going anywhere.
With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. If you run with wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. “A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.”
The simple but true fact of life is that you become like those with whom you closely associate – for the good and the bad.
Note: Be not mistaken. This is applicable to family as well as friends. Yes…do love, appreciate and be thankful for your family, for they will always be your family no matter what. Just know that they are human first and though they are family to you, they may be a friend to someone else and will fit somewhere in the criteria above.
“In Prosperity Our Friends Know Us. In Adversity We Know Our friends.”
“Never make someone a priority when you are only an option for them.” “If you are going to achieve excellence in big things,you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude..”
― Colin Powell
Remember this, it’s what you do with the words after someone has spoken them to you that counts.
That’s where the true power lies.
You are the sole person who gets to say if they’re true and to take them into your life.
I’m here to tell you, it’s not true that you are unworthy of love. It’s a story, but it’s not true. It’s actually a lie.
And most of all, most imperative of all is loving yourself. Gosh, so much has been said on self-love that you may initially wince when you read those words.
I’m not a mushy kind of person. I’ve been new-aged to death like everyone else. But the truth is, REAL self-love is not some soft-coated, flowery coat you put on with affirmations in the pockets.
Real self love is strong, gutsy, ballsy, respectful, take-no-prisoners energy towards yourself that shows up in your life as courage, dignity, repeated-resurrection, humility, compassion, humour and down to the bones living.
As Hemingway said: “A man can be destroyed and still not be defeated’
You can get knocked down by someones words, the song was wrong, sticks and stones can hurt your bones and words CAN also hurt you!
BUT, massive clause here, don’t you leave it at that. No sir! You get back up, smack those words off like dust and remember the truth, sure some sucker can come along and knock you off your chair for a moment but you remember who you are, remember that ballsy self that doesn’t hand over life and truth to someone who thinks it’s okay to knock you.
YOU’RE the driver of your life, kick anyone out who tries to climb up in the rig and grab the wheel. They can get back in their own truck and deal with their own speed bumps. You’ve got a road you’re on and a journey to make. Love the person at the wheel, they’re gonna take you places you never imagined possible, you just have to remember they’re there and don’t let anyone get between you and that kind of love.
That’s one place that belongs to you, one love that won’t leave you high and dry. Period.
~ Lynika
“Live authentically. Why would you continue to compromise something that’s beautiful to create something that is fake.”
-Steve Maraboli
Yes… and remember to teach and guide others to find the longing, authenticity and passion within, how to reach down into the dark bones and draw themselves up.
Like water deep in the well, the rope sometimes unravels a long way down.
But if we trust and reel in, hand over hand what is in the depths of that.. if we lift that weighted bucket to the surface, to the light, then we can truly be quenched.
And we can carry that to others, let them sip from what we truly bring.
And in doing so they learn, how to kneel at their well, how to draw, how to fill and spill their goodness across this planet.
You, YOU matter ♥
Life is happening right this second, this moment.
Moved to a place that doesn’t have solid, earthy goodness filling you up and sweet, present, ecstatic joy slapping you in the face with a big happy kiss.
*Later..
*As soon as..
Once I’ve/We’ve…
*After..
*When the/he/she..
Meanwhile those lost moments accumulate and turn into days, then weeks, months, years until one day you realise
These moments are my LIFE.
Go outside for a moment, really, get up, look out the window if you’re in a blizzard or heatwave, but LOOK out there, look at life, it’s happening right now around you and TO you.
Be happy in it. Satisfied even.. take one small moment if you will and just LOVE it.
Life is brief, live it W I D E and DEEP you gorgeous, magnificent, amazing miracle!
I LOVE anything outside of the box.
As a child I found it very hard to colour inside the lines and I’m glad to say I still do. I much prefer to live outside the box and to let colour spill over any lines.
When was the last time you threw off the ‘expected’ and did something in a new way, or simply your way or just for the fun of it?