Words Make Something Happen

Emery is 17 months old. She discovered that words make something happen. Can you imagine her delight? More. Wow, that gets you more of something you like. All done gets them to stop giving you food when you don't want any more. Hi makes people smile and say it back. Bye- bye works pretty much the same way, only when people are going away.

Emery works happily all through the day to capture the magical powers! At night she practices as she drifts off to sleep.

You have probably conquered the magical powers long ago. Remembering the magic and the power is the tricky part and the important part.

The same words that convey love or how to build a house can also start a war or break someone's heart. They bring thoughts into reality with their vibration – literally; the spoken word vibrates through the air into our ears where we interpret it. The written word we figure out with our eyes. Amazing!

Emery is my granddaughter. Her gift to me this Christmas is a new awareness that words make something happen. She encourages me to use them well and kindly to make things happen that I want to happen. Like:

• Thank you for reading this so we can share some thoughts
• May peace prevail
• Joy to the world
• I wish you boundless success and happiness

Got words to share? Make something happen by leaving your comment.

Love,
Mandy

Find life enhancing gifts at the Breakout Store http://mandyevans.com/the-breakout-store/

You Are The Present

How are you doing? As the holidays draw near, the days fill with opportunities to connect with friends and family, everyone really – or not.

I don't know about you, but I have spent a few tense holidays, unconscious, on automatic pilot. Growing up in an alcoholic family, my version of that was an exhausting attempt to make everything work out for everyone. Yikes!

This year I plan to break out from the well worn groove and connect with myself and others "presently". Maybe in quiet ways no one will notice, I kind of hope so.

While celebrating our connection and wishing you peace and joy, I think of breakout experiences to share.

When that gate shut behind us in the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in the Catskill mountains of New York, I knew something big had really closed. We would not walk back through that opening until someone in a uniform told us we could.

Members of the NAACP there had invited us to speak about famine in East Africa because we were involved in a project to raise awareness of about world hunger. As a guard escorted us below tiers of cells, inmates screamed down at us in such a roar I couldn't pick out what anyone was saying -- probably a good thing. When we reached an auditorium, he took us backstage to meet our sponsors.

As I waited backstage, I peeked out at rows and rows of black men wearing white tee shirts and green tennis shoes. The first speaker walked on stage, a thin white guy with glasses. They jeered. They howled. He continued with his talk as if nothing were happening.

I was next! As my pulse sped up, I thought the only thing I can do is be present, connect, not go unconscious like a robot on automatic pilot.

I walked out, took the microphone, and stood there -- gazed out at that green-sneakered sea of difference and let it in. Suddenly, as if it had a will of its own, my voice blurted out, "I've never been in a prison before." Over a ripple of laughter another voice from the back rows rang out, "Neither had I, honey."

When our laughter died down, that group of men, incarcerated in the Woodbourne Correctional Facility in the Catskill mountains of New York listened in total silence while I presented statics on infant mortality and starvation in Somalia and the horn of East Africa.

Those guys donated several hundred dollars, their gift to alleviate suffering across the world, an amazing amount considering their meager resources.

As I've worked with all sorts of people over the decades of my coaching experience, over and over we discovered that the present of our presence is always enough.

As you ponder your holiday lists of things to cook and presents to buy, how about including your presence, the most splendid present of all? What a gift you are!

Wishing you golden moments of happy, present holidays.

Love,
Mandy

For other presents look at my Amazon Author page for two books. Give the gift of happiness with Emotional Options. Give the gift of recovery with Travelling Free http://amazon.com/author/mandyevans

Speaking of Miracles

Want to experience a miracle? Several to choose
from came up in a Skype interview with those
delightful women, The English Sisters today.

Miraculously, it's already up and available on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ej-VpPf4cA

Rome to Palm Springs! A little jerky, but hey,
across the world and free!

More about Accepting Miracles! If you are looking
for holiday gifts (don't forget yourself) please consider
the "Accepting Miracles" video at the Breakout Store.

http://mandyevans.com/archives/accepting-miracles-video/

For $7.95 you can give it 3 times! We set the delivery
so it can be downloaded and saved 3 times. When you
buy it, you can send the link you get on your receipt to
2 other people. Let's see, that's $2.65 each.

Arithmetic aside, the live presentation in this video drew
a big standing ovation because it opens the door to
accepting miracles. They are available to us all, but so
easy to miss if we get caught in the quicksand of stress,
worry and fear. It's ironically common to lose track of our
blessings during the holidays meant to celebrate them.

Here's to accepting and celebrating the miracles of connection, love, and happiness with you!

Love,
Mandy

Readers and I love to hear what you think and share your
miracles. You can post them here by clicking on "Post a comment"below.

What Are You Grateful For?

I don't know which is more wonderful feeling gratitude, sharing gratitude or learning that someone is grateful to you.

I'm in Seattle, grateful for warmth and shelter, the love of my family and friends and the opportunity to connect with you. Grateful for the infinite opportunities for happiness, love and prosperity available to us all. 

What are you grateful for?  Click "comments" below to let us know.

Happy Thanksgiving and many blessings!

Love,
Mandy

Relationship Challenge

What do you find challenging in relationships -- not just romantic ones, but all kinds, like friendships and people you work with?

For me the hardest one is the choice to say something to someone knowing full well they won't like it and may find it painful, or be a total hypocrite. Usually I can just let it go. I'm not the boss of the universe or anyone but my dear cleaning lady for 3 hours every other week. But sometimes, if you do not speak up you will have to relinquish something you value deeply or put up with something destructive. Give up or risk the lash-back scenario, the loss of a relationship, or having someone set out to destroy your reputation? It is not so easy.

We all face those choices. How do you deal with them?

I've opted to say my piece as kindly as I could in a couple of instances when the choice seemed like doing that or taking a long drink of slow working poison. It was hard, really hard -- the consequences long and drawn out. The result in self-respect and closer connections are worth it.

Connecting with our fellow-beings presents such possibilities for joy and pain. At the first (and probably last) Breakout Coach Training last week, we amazed ourselves with the complexity and power of the barriers we have built between us and our fellow beings. We broke out from many of our privately run prisons of isolation to an outpouring of love and creativity.

What is a relationship challenge for you? How do you deal with it?

Connecting with love,
Mandy

Are You Rich Or Poor? How to Tell

Do you believe you are rich or poor? If you have enough and some to spare you are rich. If you do not have enough and have nothing to spare, you are poor.

One of the keys that will prop open the door to prosperity is the knowledge that you always have something to give. It may as sweet as a smile or as rare as understanding and acceptance. The generosity of encouragement has strong power to uplift or hold someone up who is about to fall over. A hand to hold can provide a lifeline. Perhaps you can provide actual help with a task or trouble? It could be money too, of course.

I have seen people blast out of poverty consciousness by daring to donate some of their store of cash to a worthy cause, or by leaving a tip to brighten someone's day.

A friend who barely had enough income to scrape by, pledged to give $10 a month to an organization dedicated to ending world hunger at an event we attended. When I whispered, "You don't have to do that." "She replied, "I can do that. I know what it is like not to be able to feed your children. I can do that."

Coincidence, or prime-the-pump Karma? She got a job soon after. It paid enough to move the specter of all-out-of-money farther away than it had ever been in her life.

On the flip side, I live in a fairly affluent community filled with many generous and kind people – and a few who look as if they believe if they smile, they will lose something they can never get back. A poster pops up on Facebook lately. It says, "Some people are so poor all they have is money." I know a few of those people too. The suffer just like those who struggle to pay the rent.

Are you rich or poor? What do you believe? I'd love to know.

Love,
Mandy

For more resources visit: http://mandyevans.com/the-breakout-store/

You're Probably Not Normal!

You're probably are not normal! One of a kind,
that's what you are. It does not get any more
special than that. How exquisitely unique, your
view of life and our world. Only you have touched
all of the people you have loved and befriended.

What amazing gifts you have to share. If you attempt
to trade them all for a spot on a bell curve marked
"normal," you will never know who you might connect
with if you give a hint of your splendor. Even if you
try to make that bad bargain, you probably won't
succeed; you'll just dim your light a little.

One of a kind character actor, Bill Hickey, was one
of the strangest people I ever knew -- tall, skinny with
teeth like a race horse and a NY accent so intense it
seemed like a joke. Nominated for an Academy
Award for a role in "Prizi's Honor" and beloved acting
teacher at the HB Studio in NYC, he once said,
"If you want a really good acting lesson just ride the
subway and watch all of the people trying to act normal."

Just to think of the beyond-normal wonder of
Bill Hickey and you! Still, almost everyone I know
lives with painful beliefs about lack of worthiness
and doubt about what they have to offer.

If I had a magic wand and could wave those beliefs
away,would you want me to wave it?

If not, why not? If you have an answer to that one,
you've got some beliefs that would be well worth
exploring.

How about celebrating an "I'm Not Normal Day"?
We won't have to tell anyone if we don't want to.
We could devote 24 hours to knowing deep in our
hearts, that each of us is a one of a kind treasure.

I'm starting now; I hope you will join me.