Mastermind Blog

  Dear Readers, This is an acknowledgement of your successes both current and future.  I even have a smile for your past successes. I want to see you succeed. I hold space for your successes in my heart.  I see your bright future full of happiness, success, and love. I see you shining brightly, holding your torch up high, illuminating the hidden treasures that in the dark we all thought were traps. I acknowledge each of you as you dove deep into yourselves when you thought you were in a bottomless pit and pulled your true love self into your own arms and hugged her. I see how all of us have taken some of our fears and turned them into love.  I see how we opened our eyes to our true hearts and began sweeping out the corners and removing the cobwebs of criticism, hate, manipulation, and discontent, that we had accumulated from outside sources. As I face fear, I uncover truth.  I don’t always like that truth in the moment, but eventually I see “re...

  A State of Pain I am in a State of Pain.   This is a particularly rough time for me because I feel as if I am being thwarted, especially since I did not publish a September Post.   I have not been able to even type with two hands for 4 days.    I will go to a Sports Medicine doctor on Wednesday for a diagnosis of my left shoulder pain.   X-rays at Urgent Care showed no breaks or any serious problem.   There was just a little bit of arthritis that the doctor was certain would not cause this much pain.   She’s the one that’s sending me to Sports Medicine.   I will either be given an ultra sound or an MRI.    The only two things that I can research after that appointment are bursitis and torn tendons.   I hope it is bursitis!   I wish to be healed, but I am in this state of pain for a reason.   If that reason isn’t attended to, there will not be much healing.   I did not fall.   I did not have an accident...

  Releasing Old Beliefs I recently released a belief that a lack of money was going to keep me from fixing or finishing some things that are important to me.   I was unaware that I was busily outlining the chain of events as I perceived they had to happen.  I cannot remember what I was listening to that brought this understanding to me but as I turned my problem over to a higher power, along with the words where I allowed that my needs would be met without me limiting or defining how it would be done, but that it would happen with ease, the process began.  Those aren’t my exact words.  I don’t remember what my exact words were but I do remember the relief I felt as I released the belief that I must struggle to have my needs met.  I released the belief that my dreams were too big for my circumstances. I was guided to ask a person who could and would give me a hand at no charge.  In order to do this, I had to release my belief that I shouldn’t ...

  Writing Writing is a way to express something in a way that simply talking cannot do.   I relate it to fermentation. Fermentation is a process extracting energy from carbohydrates without oxygen.   I put my fruit juice in a stainless-steel bucket, add yeast and sugar, and stir twice a day.   As the yeast begins to transform the sugar, foam begins to build up, growing, growing, growing, and then poof, it all begins to shrink.   To me this is very much like the discussion of an idea with other people.   When the foam shrinks below the scum line on the sides of the bucket, it is time to pour the liquid into a carboy and make an airtight seal with a trap which I top with a sulfur dioxide solution.   Fermentation shifts inward as gasses created by the process push the oxygen up and together, they escape the trap without allowing more oxygen to enter.   The fibers of the fruit fall to the bottom of the jug and the juice begins to clear. (Clarify...

  Expectation One of the most powerful tools that we can add to our toolbox is to release expectation .     There are some positive uses for expectation, such as sending your child off to school expecting them to have a good day.   There are some perfectly rational expectations such as expecting water to flow when you flush the toilet.   But we frequently use expectation as a weapon which can lead to sabotage of ourselves and others and we don’t know we are doing it.   Most of us are familiar with planning a day out, possibly where we go to the park and expect to be able to play on the swings, only to find that the swings are all occupied.    We can wait for a turn or we can find something else to play with.   At least that is what we would tell our children when we arrived at the park and found no swing available.    When a child has an emotional melt down over not being able to find an empty swing, we teach them how to pu...

  Fertility “The state of being fertile or fruitful; the quality of producing in abundance: fecundity; productiveness: as, the fertility of the land, or (more rarely) of a breed of animals, a race of men, or an individual.” --American Heritage Dictionary   My highest priority at this time of year is fertility.  All things that require fertility must be considered when growing a garden, a lawn, a park, or just a terrarium.  Then of course, I want eggs that can be hatched into baby chickens.  Fertility means high levels of productivity.  I also want the daffodils and the crocus to multiply, the fruit trees to bloom so that they can be pollinated. I am struck by the incredible balance of nutrient rich soil.   I am also spellbound by the cycle of nature.  I have literally watched Hardpan Hill Farm transform into Emerald Aisle Farm.  There is another form of fertility that is in full swing around here and that is my abundance of c...

  We all have deeper aspects to our personalities than we might want to admit.  I found better words to describe myself than I got from the people around me.     Meyers and Briggs Personality Test There is some information on the Internet that shines a negative light on the Meyers and Briggs Personality Test.   This first one makes me laugh.   “The Meyers and Briggs personality test is not predictive.”   Predictive is a word that suggests the complainer expected the test to tell fortunes.   The test does not tell your future or your fortune.   The next one says, “Phycologists don’t use the Meyers and Briggs test.” This one also makes me laugh because psychopathology which is explored by therapists is not about standardized personality traits.   My therapist did not treat me based on a test.   She treated me based on the issues that were rife in my life.   Another comment, Meyers and Briggs test rates at 50% after a 5-wee...