Recently I met my new friend. We talked for hours, walked in a drizzling rain, went to the beach in the dark. We had a great time and conversation.
In talking with her, I realized how far I came. My attitude towards everything has changed. Like the saying goes, “Do not look for me in the past. I am not there anymore.” It rings so true to me.
I realized all the struggles I been through in the past only made me stronger. The people who treated me unfairly are no longer in my life. Some things that I would be dead serious about before, just made me laugh. I know what I want and nothing will stop me.
By talking to my friend, I glanced into my past and right now. I came a LONG way. Wow! I am not afraid of little setbacks anymore. It only makes me stronger. Setbacks are just a little building blocks that goes to the top of the castle of our dreams come true.
By summing up all our conversations about life and people, an enormous gratitude filled my heart. I am grateful for:
1. My family and friends. You are truly amazing, each one of you!
2. My health. Where I was and where I am now – HUGE difference!
3. My pets who give an unconditional bundles of love and joy.
4. A peace in my heart. Forgiveness plays a huge part.
5. My self-confidence. Gosh, even my back is straight and I see clearer.
6. My cheerfulness and positivity. A simple smile makes the whole difference not only for me, but for others.
7. My creativity and curiosity. I LOVE making ordinary into extraordinary, to challenge myself to see in creative ways.
8. Challenges. They teach me lessons and test me how strong I’ve become. It builds a character, so bring it on. 
9. New opportunities that unexpectedly present themselves.
10. LIFE. I cherish every minute that I am alive!
What are you grateful in your life?
Tags: family, friends, fun, gratefulness, health, inspiration, journal, life, lifestyle, me, opinion, past, people, personal, photo, picture, post and photo by Ineta Mcparland, random thoughts, reflections, relationships, self-confidence, thoughts, women, wonderocity
People come and go. Some of them touch our hearts, some of them break them. Some people come into our lives to give certain lessons. Some people test our nerves, test how strong we become. Yet with some people, it feels that we have known them for years. We can talk to them for hours, and never gets boring. It seems that they are our soul friends – people who are traveling a similar path.
If we look at our friend circle and people we meet, do we feel empowered? Or do we feel drained? Do we feel enthusiastic? Or do we feel victimized? How our friends make us feel?
This year, I decided to sort my friends out in a personal life and on social media. Animal abusers or animal hunters for fun, people who demean women and others are not acceptable in my world. I had to un-friend some on Facebook. In personal life, I had to let go of some people as well. People with chronic victim mentality only drains’ others’ energy. They are real downers and not willing to change. Some people just do not deserve to be in our lives. If they put us down or belittle us, we can choose to let them go. I did that, and my life became lighter.
Note: if mentally we are still mad on them, they still have a control over us. Therefore, forget, forgive and let it go. By being mad, we only hurt ourselves.
I choose to surround myself with people who are amazing, creative, inspiring and empowering. Yes, we all go through life’s hard stuff. We all have our stories. However, if some people choose to complain about it and do not do anything, it is a downer not only for them, but also for us. We do not need to get into other people’s dramas.
Life is all about going higher and achieving our dreams. Let’s surround ourselves with people who empower us to be the best. Let’s be the best for others, too. Let’s inspire one another.
Tags: being positive, friends, how to recognize a great friend, how to start over, inspiration, journal, life, no drama, opinion, people, personal, photo, picture, ramblings, random thoughts, reassesing relationships, reflections, relationships, self-confidence, self-esteem, sorting friends out, starting over, thoughts, women, wonderocity
Posted by ineta on Aug 15, 2011 in
being positive,
smile Here is something to make you smile because smile makes the whole world better. It can even cure Monday-itis, the most stressful day of the week for many.
I got these quotes from Brainy Quote:
Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company. – Mark Twain
Housework can’t kill you, but why take a chance? – Phyllis Diller
I found there was only one way to look thin: hang out with fat people. – Rodney Dangerfield
I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three. – Elayne Boosler
My mother was against me being an actress – until I introduced her to Frank Sinatra. – Angie Dickinson
My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was sixty. She’s ninety-seven now, and we don’t know where the hell she is. – Ellen DeGeneres
Hope this cheered you up. Have a Super Fantastic Day!
Tags: fun, funny, funny quotes, humor, life, links, opinion, photos, pictures, post and photos by Ineta McParland, quotes, ramblings, random thoughts, thoughts, wonderocity
Posted by ineta on Aug 10, 2011 in
being positive,
change,
energy,
nature,
photography It is been raining. When there is a lack of sunshine, there is usually a lack of energy and a lack of smiles. On a rainy day, we tend to curl up in the bed and read a great book, or watch programs. Perhaps, it is a time to relax and take it easy. For some reason, we are programmed to escape rain. Some of us even dread rain. We cover ourselves with huge umbrellas and run as fast as we can. Well, of course, we do not want to get wet.
Have you ever walked in the rain? How about dance? What if we think, we have a sunshine in our hearts, would rain still bother us? Let’s look at the nature. Rain refreshes everything around us. The grass and leaves become greener. The flowers start to bloom. The bright colors become even more brighter. The air becomes fresher. It washes away all the dust and brings a new energy.
How about life? When troubles enter our lives, do we run as fast as we can from them? Do we hide from them? Or we take them how they are and take charge over them? What if we look at our troubles as rain – underneath of it all there is something refreshing hidden. There is always the way. There is a great change waiting to happen, if are willing to see and act upon.
There is a beauty inside of us that will never be destroyed by rain. It might be sleeping for now. However, the rain might awaken it, if we allow it. We just got to trust ourselves and follow our gut and see where it will take us. Let’s go dance in the rain.
“A crown is merely a hat that lets the rain in.” – Frederick The Great
“Rain is grace; rain is the sky descending to the earth; without rain, there would be no life.” – John Updike
“A poet is someone who stands outside in the rain hoping to be struck by lightning.” – James Dickey
“A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true.” – Ray Evans
“I am sure it is a great mistake always to know enough to go in when it rains. One may keep snug and dry by such knowledge, but one misses a world of loveliness.” – Adeline Knapp
“I’m singing in the rain, just singing in the rain; What a wonderful feeling, I’m happy again.” – Arthur Freed
“Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.” – Author Unknown
“And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton.
“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” – Roger Miller
“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.” – John Ruskin
“Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams.” – Ashley Smith
Interesting, I found this quote that resembles my morning thought:
“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” – Anthony J. D’Angelo.
Tags: art, beauty, flowers, fun, inspiration, life, nature, opinion, orchids, personal, philosophy, photo, photo gallery, photo inspiration, photography, photos, photos of flowers, picture, pictures, post and photos by Ineta McParland, Rain, rain drops, rain inspiration, rainy flowers, rainy orchids, rainy roses, ramblings, random thoughts, reflections, roses, thoughts, wonderocity
Here are some more wisdom nuggets from Robert G. Allen’s e-book The Road to Wealth:
“Ask any successful person why they are so successful, and they will answer in two words: good decisions.
But how do you learn to make good decisions? One word: experience.
But how do you get experience? Two words: bad decisions.
Question: Are you willing to risk making enough bad decisions so that you can gain the experience necessary to be able to make good ones?”
“A negative thinker sees something suspicious on the horizon immediately imagines the worst and follows things to their logical negative conclusion. Something goes wrong, an unexpected bill, and before you can say “whoops” he is preparing for bankruptcy. No wonder a negative thinker never makes any success happen. He’s always too busy battening down the hatches because he thinks the sky is falling down.
On other hand, the optimistic thinker always tries to see things in a positive light – to follow things to their illogical positive conclusion. When he sees a problem on the horizon, he immediately starts trying to find something good with it. If you look hard enough, you know, you can always find something good. No wonder positive thinkers are always smiling.”
How to Develop the Skill of Grace Under Pressure
“When you find yourself in a stressful situation (i.e., a closing that is coming up, an especially important negotiation) you may discover that your normal cool is replaced with panic. With practice, you can learn to handle these situations with grace and poise. Here are some points to consider:
1. Step back and see the big picture. Almost invariably, when you find yourself losing your cool it is because you fail to see things in perspective. Look back ten years from where you have come. See the progress you have made. View your present situation as just another stepping stone in your long-term progression. Ask yourself where you are going to be in 10 years. The stress you feel in your present circumstances will diminish when viewed in this context.
2. Review your goals, Hannah More wrote, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes of the goal.” Keep your eyes on the goal, and you won’t have time to lose your cool.
3. Realize that stress is caused by fear. Fear is not a thing. It’s just a thought. It can’t stop you. Only you can stop you. So get out of your own way. Quit thinking fear thoughts. Start thinking success thoughts.
4. Give yourself a pep talk with phrases like these: Inch by inch, anything’s a cinch. No pain, no gain. It’s always darkest before the dawn. Who am I doing this for? My family. Is their long-term success more important to me than this momentary stress that seems to be holding me back? Yes. Is there any other way? No. Then do it.
5. Do it now. Develop the habit of doing what you need to do when the thought comes to you. Don’t put it off. Your habit of procrastination is really just another camouflage for of fear. You must face it. Do it now.
The ability to exude grace under pressure is the result of passing through many positive and negative experiences in which you finally see that you can handle whatever gets thrown at you. Things are rarely all or nothing, make or break, do or die. Regardless of the outcome, the sun still comes up in the morning. Life teaches that things are never as good as they seem or as bad as you imagine. Even the failures often turn out to be the best answer in the long run. There are good things in bad situations and bad things in good situations. There are just as few reasons to be overly excited about something, as there are to be overly despondent. Wisdom dictates that you learn to be more even-tempered. Moderation in all things, and from this comes grace.”
Tags: books, how to achieve success, how to handle stress, how to handle stressful situations, inspiration, life, lifestyle, opinion, optimist, personal, pessimist, philosophy, photo gallery, photo inspiration, photos, pictures, post and photos by Ineta McParland, random thoughts, reflections, Robert G. Allen, self-confidence, self-esteem, stress, success, The Road to Wealth, thoughts, wonderocity
Posted by ineta on Jul 9, 2010 in
being positive,
starting over 
Everyday we are governed by our thoughts. Our thoughts project our reality. The thoughts transfer then into actions, whether we are aware of it or not.
First, where does our thinking come from? What it is based on? Why we think the way we think? Most of it consist of what we read, what we heard, what we learned. Most of our thoughts are based on our past, that is familiar to us. That’s why it is so hard to break away from mistakes we keep making. We fall into the same trap, being aware of it or not.
For example, why some women or men fall repeatedly into abusive relationships? Unconsciously, that’s familiar to them. They do not know any better. Why it is so hard to break bad habits? We think, we always done it that way – our mind keeps us hostage. Why we keep our job even though we hate it? – it is familiar. We justify that we got good insurance, great benefits, but each morning comes and we dread to go to work. Days become years, and we are stuck being unhappy. Some days are better than others, but deep inside we know we deserve better – yet we do not do anything about it.
We want to change so badly. We promise ourselves “some day,” yet we keep going like the mouse in the wheel, and we get nowhere.
So, how to get unstuck? How to re-condition our minds to go where we want to go, to achieve what we want to achieve? How to get away from the past?
How about if we keep our past just for a reference to keep the lessons we learned? That’s it. As for present and future, let’s step into unfamiliar zone as often as possible. What we think is what our reality is.
Another example: If we think we cannot find our eyeglasses, we will search everywhere, even though they’re in our hand. Now, if we concentrate in finding them, then we’ll find them instantly. The same is with life. If we think, we cannot do something, we’ll not even going to try it. Now, if we think we can do it, we might end up doing it better than we previously thought. We might surprise ourselves. We got to step into unfamiliar, do new things, think in different ways – to recondition our minds that we can do anything we desire.
If we are stuck in abusive relationship, first, we got to change our mentality that we are worth only the best, and either stand up for ourselves or leave, or both. In some instances, we might need help in that. No person should be ever abused.
If we want to break free from a bad habit, we got to imagine us to be healthy, successful, honest, etc., whatever it might be, opposite from a bad habit – and condition our minds to take action toward it.
If we hate our jobs, think of this, “Life is too short to be unhappy, ” and take actions to change it. We may need to save up for our new venture, or still work there until our hobby will take off to full time venture. However, with our goal in mind we can now tolerate our jobs because we know it is only temporary. Or, if we’re prepared, we can quit now, and go after our dreams now without waiting.
The key is to shift our minds and think positive. We got to keep our minds on the target goal and go for it even it is not familiar or we’re afraid. That’s where thinking positive comes in. When we think positive, we are not easily let down and we see end results and go for them no matter what. Sure, there might be things in the way, but with our shifted positive thinking, we can think outside the box and find solutions. It’s all in our minds whether we can or cannot do. Let’s choose, we can do it and act on it now.
Tags: abusive relationships, actions, bad habits, change, changing jobs, getting unstuck, How our minds create our reality, how to break bad habits, inspiration, life, past, personal, philosophy, photo, random thoughts, re-conditioning our minds, reflections, reletionships, thinking, thinking positive, thoughts, trap, wonderocity
Posted by ineta on Jun 10, 2010 in
being positive 
Our minds are so super-busy, that they would not shut up when we lay down to sleep. They work over-time, like that energizer bunny: keeps going and going and going…
It’s great when our minds work to help us to achieve things, when we get a brilliant idea and go for it. Then sleepless nights are great.
However, what keeps most of us late at night is useless stuff:
1) “I’ll think about it” stuff;
2) Worries;
3) Uncompleted “To Do” lists.
Earlier that day, we see something in the store or online that we really like. We tell salesperson to put it on hold. Then, we rack our brains, “Should we get it? Do we really need it? But it looks so good.”… After thinking, we decide to go back and get it.
Now imagine if we do not need to “think about it” and buy it on the spot. By night, we would enjoy what we bought; we would avoid the aggravation of thinking; and at the end, we would save our time, salesperson’s time and gas. We would have a free mind and be able to sleep at night.
The key is if we like it, we should go for it right now, not later. Why to put our enjoyment on hold?
The most major useless thing that keep us late at night is worry. We worry about major things and minor things. We worry about health, money, family – you name it. Think about it… Does worry do anything good? It gives us headaches, sleepless nights, stomachaches, ulcers, unclear thinking, black circles under the eyes, nervous breakdowns, breathing problems, anger outbursts, depression. Nothing good comes out of worry. Worrying is usually looking at the worst case scenario of the situation.
So, instead of worry (that does not do any good), look at positive and find a solution. Granted, some problems are out of our control – might take awhile to solve. Some things we just have to let it be. However, most problems can be solved one way or another. With little innovation or different way of thinking, there is always a solution.
Instead of filling our minds with worry (that is hazardous to our health and sanity), how about to look at solutions.
To us that are busy-bodies, To-Do list is pretty essential. There are not enough hours in a day to accomplish everything we want. Therefore, the To-Do list is not finished – again. We regret not be able to accomplish it all. So now, we add undone items to tomorrow’s To-Do list, which probably will be unfinished – again. What we do not realize is that we have become over-achievers.
What if we would throw that To-Do list out of the window and concentrate on stuff that really matters to us. What if we do not depend on it anymore? What if instead of multi-tasking and overextending ourselves, we concentrate on one task at the time that is most important? Would life be so much easier?
At the end of the day, then we can breathe easier knowing we achieved what was important to us. It’s great to be imperfect. Without “To-Do” list, there is no more pressure to be perfect – in that, there is a peace of mind.
We got to get rid of the useless junk that clogs our mind. This way, we can make a space for more important stuff, like joy for life.
For more inspiration, you can log in to living on impulse to see what is possible.
Tags: "I'll think about it, anger outbursts, black cicles, breathing problems, depression, dog, finding a solution, hazardous to health, headaches, health, insomnia, inspiration, life, mind, multi-tasking, nervous breakdowns, overachieving, overthinking, peace of mind, personal, photos, pictures, post and photos by Ineta McParland, puppy, ramblings, random thoughts, reflections, sleepless nights, solutions, stomachaches, thoughts, ulcers, unclear thinking, uncompleted "To Do" lists, useless stuff, wonderocity, worries
Posted by ineta on May 13, 2010 in
being positive 
We all know someone who has all the luck in the world. It seems that they are born under lucky star. Anything they wish, they achieve. How do they do that? Is it possible to turn our luck around? What we do not realize is that we all make up our luck, either good or bad. So, how can we become lucky? I believe, the answer is this:
Three keys to good luck are:
1) intention
2) attitude
3) gratitude
First, we need to know what we really want, intend and focus on it no matter what. What we concentrate on, that’s what we attract. If we intend to achieve something and are open-minded and persistent, we’ll always see the new opportunities coming. Most importantly, we got to act upon those opportunities and not let doubt to set in. On other hand, if we do not know what we want, the opportunity might be under our nose, but we are not going to see it.
Next, attitude is everything. If we concentrate on negative, all we are going to see is negative. If we concentrate on positive, we’ll see only positive things.
Third, gratitude is the most important. We can be grateful for things we often take for granted: our health, family, friends, each day we live that present us with new beginnings and opportunities. If we think what we’re grateful for each day, our attitude will instantly change from negative to positive. It will bring a positive intention for the next day. Thinking how grateful we are will make us think how really lucky we are to have things we never thought of. We are lucky to be alive, growing and learning.
Tags: achievement, attitude, focus, good luck, grateful, gratitude, how to have a better luck, inspiration, intention, life, luck, lucky star, new beginnings, opportunities, personal, photo, picture, post and photo by Ineta Mcparland, reflections, thoughts, wants, wonderocity
