Category: Encouragement

Dreams, Encouragement, Go For Your Dreams, Goals, Visualization

Roadmap To Your Dreams

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Last year my pre New Year’s word of intention was Create. This year I didn’t plan on a new word. The last week of the year was kind of fuzzy because of illness, so I decided to forget about it. 

But there is no forgetting, I found my phrase-it found me- during the first hours on New Year’s Day.

After the NYE party I slept for four hours before my boyfriend and I drove to Pasadena to spend the morning at the Rose Parade. 

Attending the parade, an hour and fifteen minutes away, was one of those last minute “Go for it,” moments when you really go for it, whatever the cost. Oh, it was worth it even at a chilly (for Southern Cal residents) 42^ morning.

The first float was “Follow Your Dreams.” A multi-island 5,000 rose festooned float, using features inspired by Dr. Seuss, illustrated a child’s imagination and dreams. 

An island, a bridge, a castle, 16 foot slide, pinwheels and planes fashioned from 20,000 flowers gave me my inspiration for the new year: Go For My Dreams.   

This is not to say that one clicks the red sparkly shoes repeating “Follow your dreams,” ad nauseum.
The theme is a reminder to keep dreaming, to never give up, to remember that one step back can be followed by a step forward, like  in a great little cha-cha dance: side step, back step, forward. 

When following your dreams a roadmap is wise-you might get there quicker. And it can’t be any old map-it has to be your map.

Instead of cities along the road, visualize landmarks or stepping stones working towards small and larger goals. Make a collage or use an old road map and draw on it. Or try this free printable from Living Locurto.  Now put it somewhere you can frequently view it.


                                                                  Your map=Your dream

Now, name your goals/dreams, draw them, and/or find a symbol for the dream to feel it. Look at the details of your dreams in your mind’s eye. Keep a hold of that vivid image, refer to your drawing, or symbol for it whenever you need a reminder of your dream. 

Okay, got the picture? 
Now, go for your dreams, one step at a time, enjoy the scenery, include rest stops and may you have a creative, loving, and peaceful New Year. 

                                                 

Chingonas, Encouragement, Iyanla Vanzant, Oprah Winfrey, Wisdom, Yesterday I Cried

Wisdom for the Weekend-Iyanla Vanzant Truisms

Mona Alvarado Frazier


book I own
Ever since I read the book, Yesterday I Cried, I became a fan of Iyanla Vanzant. She has a way of telling it like it is without putting one down, without judgment. 

She uses her experiences, her own brokenness, to show how life’s hardships can be re-envisioned to become lessons that teach us as we learn to heal, grow and love. She is the quintessential Chingona. 

In Sandra Cisneros, “How to be Chingona in 10 easy steps,” these three are fully demonstrated by Iyanla:

  1. What are you using to cover or mask your pain? Address it.
  2. Your only true possessions are your actions.
  3. Seek forgiveness.

For a good while, almost ten years, I hadn’t heard about Iyanla’s new books or seen her on T.V. And then I caught an episode of Oprah and Iyanla together, earlier this year. The discussion centered on their ‘falling out,’ and the beliefs they had operated on, which resulted in a cancelled show. 

So now I understood what happened. Which caused me to seek out Ivanyla’s new show on Oprah’s OWN channel. But life didn’t let me get to her show very easily. My cable provider charges extra for that channel and includes 5 other channels I couldn’t care less for with the package. 

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Recently, I discovered “On Demand,” on my remote and found I could access “Iyanla-Fix My Life” re-runs. 


I sat up for a few hours watching a couple of episodes and feeling how they resonated with my life. It was emotionally draining. 

The next night I texted my sister and raved about the show before I watched two more episodes. The next day she texted back that she loved the life lessons illustrated on the program. I  know they took the both of us back to painful episodes from our own life. Better still we both felt we had come a long way from that time. 

Iyanla’s books and shows provide plenty of wisdom for growing Chingona’s in training and full fledged Chingona’s (because we never stop learning). So this is the “Wisdom for the Weekend,” my favorite Vanzant quotes:

  1. “Life is about cleaning up the crap and, while you’re doing it, being okay with the fact that you have to do it…. A word of caution. You can’t get caught up in the crap! If you do, you will surely lose sight of the real meaning of life and lose your Self.”
  2. “When you see crazy coming, cross the street,”
  3. “If you don’t have a test, you won’t have a testimony.”
  4. “Words create experiences. Words are things…So when you say ‘I can’t,’ you won’t. When you say ‘I don’t,’ you don’t.”
  5. “Know that if you’re not brave enough to go into love, taking a risk, then what you are doing is bargain shopping.
  6.  “When you honor yourself, every single thing that you do comes from that place…That means when you honor yourself, you protect yourself, you trust yourself, you take care of yourself. And you do things in a way that are going to bring glory to who you are.”
  7. “Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change”
  8. “You are never angry for the reason you think you are. There’s an older hurt under that.”
  9. “There are times when we do not recognize that it is time for us to move forward. When life is ready for us to move and we resist, life will move us by any means necessary. What may feel like a disaster is actually a graduation. Remain open to being guided, supported and protected by the universe.”
  10. “Call a thing a thing.”  

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Enjoy some solitude and feel the grace this weekend.