01.01.08

Welcome to Carved Solutions 2008

Posted in Uncategorized at 3:32 PM by Administrator

What was going to be my last post of 2007 has become my first post of 2008. It is, yet again, another moment to reflect in gratitude. To wake up in the morning feeling full of gratitude is a blessed feeling. It starts the day with endless possibilities. With gratitude in ones’ heart all is achievable, all attainable. One of the best times to feel gratitude is amongst life’s challenges.

Even through life’s challenges, doors are opened and dreams are brought into reality. Lessons can be learned, skills can be honed. The opportunity to find ourselves often presents itself through challenge.

When that challenge is a loss, we find out even more about ourselves, our beliefs and faith, our friends and our family. It seems this year, more than most, many have been brought into my life that have felt the touch of loss, the pain of miss.

This past holiday season we carved many remembrance items (candles & soap). The work, emotional at times, is also very fulfilling knowing we were playing a small part in someone professing their eternal love for someone else, a small part in someone’s healing…powerful! Both Mike and I are honored to be a part of that kind of love!

With gratitude comes appreciation. Appreciation for others, patience for others, understanding for others; that underneath it all we are all the same imperfect human beings with our arsenal of baggage.

Some of us share the same baggage and some of us have all sorts of “interesting” baggage that even at times becomes humorous (thanks to my sister, Roxanne, who can move our family baggage from painful to hysterical!). Whatever your “baggage” happens to be find away to sort out the lessons that lie deep within. Sometimes the lessons are foggy and hard to see, other times they are they are so clear it is like getting a fist in the face.

Mike’s grandpa, Wilfred, used to refer to it as the “School of Hard Knocks”. Wilfred lived 99 years and 9 months; he had a lot of time to learn about life. Grandpa would say, “Some people learn quickly that a punch in the face (an action or choice – hurts) and opt to duck, block or run for safety when they see it come again (change a direction, make amends, make a different choice) others must be repetitively pummeled time and time again to discover that the punch (repetitive negative actions, holding grudges, denying forgiveness or bad choices) create the same painful results”. I feel fortunate to one of the first group (even if someone else get’s the punch before I do, I try to learn from their lesson…why take a fist in the face when you don’t have to?).

Appreciation always brings me to forgiveness. The ultimate sense of freedom, a core sense of true peace is only found in forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that responsibility or accountability is removed from an action but it does mean that the hurt from the act cannot hold you prisoner. We all make mistakes. Some make HUGE mistakes or truly bad choices that hurt others but that doesn’t mean those, who have been hurt, need to let the person in error and the pain they’ve brought into their lives force them into a prison of anger, locked in the chains of wanted revenge or the attack of the slanderous tongue. Don’t allow others to own you, your heart or deny yourself peace by focusing on their choices ~ rise above. (NOTE: I do share this from a view previously swallowed by pain and anger…another moment in the School of Hard Knocks…I lost myself allowing the pain from a wrong-doing take control of my life until I rose above).

The PEACE of FORGIVENESS, the LESSONS found in BAGGAGE, the kind act of offering UNDERSTANDING, PATIENCE and APPRECIATION that one longs to receive from others. LEARNING from and FINDING ourselves in our experiences, failures and losses. Ultimately embracing the feeling of GRATITUDE for all of it! That gratitude will set you free and the reward…UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. There is no greater a gift that I could wish for all of you, for all of us for 2008 than UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!

May your path find you with a light heart, a skip in your step, and a clear vision of where you are going.

Smiles always,

Dawn

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