SOMETIMES I FAIL
The traffic was crazy. I was late. People were waiting for me. My stress was building as I pulled into the parking lot only to circle six times before finding an empty space. Running into the restaurant I blurted out a rather uncharacteristic rant of a not-so-nice kind. I saw the shock and surprise on the faces of my friends. Later I couldn’t get the image of my rant and the reaction it spurred out of my mind. I thought of the ways I want to live my life. Sometimes I fail. I fail at being the person I want to be. I want to be PATIENT and KIND with others, with life situations and with myself. Sometimes I fail. I want to be LOVING by sharing love and positive energy with everyone I meet and in every space I stand. Sometimes I fail. I want to be OPEN to all views and opinions, because I believe everyone has a path to walk and it is not my place to judge, criticize or blame. Sometimes I fail. I want to be AWAKE and AWARE of the small and grand messages of Grace that I receive. Sometimes I fail. I want to be someone who WALKS HER TALK and models the lessons I have learned and the concepts that I teach. Sometimes I fail. I want to be CONFIDENT in knowing that I am who I am --and that I am Good Enough! Sometimes I fail. I want to be SILENT and LISTEN to my heart sing the messages of my soul that guide my life in a peaceful way. Sometimes I fail. I want to be CAREFUL with my voice. Words Matter and carry with them power when they are sent out into the world - I want to choose them with care as I know that once said or written I cannot take them back. Sometimes I fail. I want to be GRATEFUL at all times for the people, things and experiences I am given in this life. Sometimes I fail. I want to be FORGIVING of others and myself and let go of the past so that it doesn't take away my future. Sometimes I fail. I can’t go back in time to that day and erase my rant or the unkind words that I blurted out to those I care about. The best I can do is realize that sometimes I will fail at being the person I want to be and to love and forgive myself-- as in every failure there is a lesson. Pennie’s Life Lesson: “Accept that sometimes we fail and with every failure there is a lesson.” YOUR TURN... My intent in sharing this with you is to confess that I am not perfect...none of us are. Although we may not intentionally mean to hurt someone or break one of our own personal guidelines...it happens. Sometimes we all fail. That doesn't make us a bad person -- it makes us human. How have you failed and learned from it? Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below . And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2016 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. If you have any questions or comments, or for reprint permission please email: [email protected]
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THE MAN
I NEVER KNEW It was the third cemetery I had walked through in less than 24 hours. While visiting the state where my grandparents lived, the passing of time lead me to where snapshots of my childhood were now tucked within the granite speckled grass. My mind flash-danced through memories as I walked. The laughter of my handsome uncle who I was certain I would grow up to marry, until he passed away as a result of a truck accident. My aunt’s impish smile and her black cat-eyed glasses that were popular in the 60’s. She brought a new word into my vocabulary and world – Cancer. My grandmother whose kind gentle hands taught me how to paint, decorate cakes and see the magical, spiritual side of life - and death. My cousin, one year older than me, that shared my memories of homemade ice cream on our grandparent’s porch and reminded us all that life can end with one attack to the heart. The man I called Grandad. It was a name that fit. He was tall, gentle, quiet and grand in the way he blended strength and kindness. My dad was 4 when Grandad came into his life and took over the role his dad had left vacant. Now, on my third stop, I searched for a name that held no memories for me. No snapshots of the past. I searched for the man who passed away from tuberculosis when my dad was 9 months old. Up and down the grass I walked. Then in the area marked by a crumbling post that once read,Section 3, I found a simple flat stone. Loren Franklin Hunt 1904-1931 I am not sure what I thought I would feel or learn from this discovery. I am not sure if I expected a connection of heart or spirit. I was sure that I needed to, in some way, meet the man I never knew- yet without him fathering my dad I wouldn't be here. I needed to feel the same love and respect for him as I did all the others I had visited in the grass that day. I stood a long time to study his name. I wondered what his laugh sounded like; what his smile was like; what his hands felt like as he held my newborn Dad; and I wondered if he was as grand in his strength and kindness as the man who stepped into his shoes. Life repeats in serendipitous ways. When my son passed away, also at a young age, he too left a 9 month old child, my granddaughter. I realized as I stood there why I had been driven to find the marker of a man I never knew. It was for him. It was for my dad. It was for me. It was for my son. It was for my granddaughter. I closed my eyes and sent a wish of hope that someday someone will care enough to search in the same way I did for the name of a man they never knew and share love and respect for his life and the generations that followed him. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie's Life Lesson: “Love doesn’t stop when you leave this life. Send gratitude to all who came before you.” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 
YOUR TURN...
My intent in sharing this with you is to encourage you to remember not only the people you knew in this life, but also the ones you didn't know. Share your thoughts and experiences relating to this post in a comment below . And please feel free to email me at: [email protected]. Thank you! ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2016 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. If you have any questions or comments, or for reprint permission please email: [email protected] 
EXIT PLAN
Do you have an exit plan? Sure you do! The very first move we made was an exit plan. We began pushing and pushing until we were birthed from our mothers; exiting the warm and caring womb into the big wild unknown. Our lives are a system of exit plans. We begin school in a societal arranged path of education knowing we will exit at the end of high school with the ceremonial walk across the stage, tassel swinging from our hat, smiles beaming and hands clapping. We make a choice to enter college with the same exit plan in mind. We don’t enter believing we will be there forever, we understand there will be an ending. We have an exit plan. Life continues this way. We enter. We exit. We exit jobs. We exit relationships. We exit locations. We strategize for retirement and we exit careers. We have an exit plan. At the end of it all we close our eyes knowing this life will end and the biggest exit happens to each of us. If we are responsible, we have wills, trusts and funeral plans, but do you really have an exit plan? This exit plan is more than just documents. We may not be able to choose what causes our exit, but we can choose how we experience it. We can choose to travel a path of gratitude and grace as we exit instead of anger, regret and despair. You see this exit plan should begin with that first push when we left our mother’s womb. Somehow our soul understands as it enters this humanness that it will exit. Do not be one of those cranky curmudgeons that grumps and complains about every event, every rain storm, every ache or pain. Be the kind of person that understands our time here is a gift. Open it every day with delight and surprise. Experience every day with both feet in and full out joy! Realize that any day, any moment could be your exit time and be ready. Be filled with joy, gratitude and love for your time here. Live every day as if it is your exit day. Have a plan to leave in love. And then, (I believe) we begin again. We enter. We exit. Life continues this way. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie’s Life Lesson: “Understand that any day could be your exit day. Live every day with both feet in and full out joy!” ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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Copyright © 2013-2016 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. If you have any questions or comments, or for reprint permission please email: [email protected] 
I FORGIVE ME!
There is a poem by Mary Oliver that begins, You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Forgiveness is a big word and grows to the status of huge when it is prefaced with the word, self. Forgiving myself is easier to whisper than to accomplish. I say whisper because I would not be so bold as to shout to the world, I FORGIVE ME! What confidence that would require to be so egoistic as to forgive ourselves! However this is the most important kind of forgiveness. Self-forgiveness is a demanding process. We must learn to step carefully on the stones of compassion and acceptance while shame, guilt, regret and judgment swirl around us. The stones are sharp and jagged as we maneuver our way, growing stronger through the struggle; learning a little here and a little there as we come closer to the green field of forgiveness that waits for us. We don’t have to be proud of what we have done – and we have all done “it.” The “it” always relates to hurting others or ourselves. Then we put ourselves in continual critic mode of how bad we are and deserving of punishment. We chastise ourselves with ruthless determination holding ourselves to a higher standard than we do others. We replay a grander drama in our minds than the reality of “it”,believing that what we did was catastrophic. We create a self-imposed illusion of what others think of us. We construct ideas about ourselves from this illusion. The perceived assessment of others about our actions creates the vulnerability of outside judgment. At times our true fear is not our offense, but that someone will find out that we are living in shame. Self-forgiveness is not easy. It is not healed instantly or permanently with the wave of a wand. However, we deserve to treat ourselves with the same compassion we would someone we love. Each time you slip into the murky darkness of shame and guilt you are withholding love from yourself. Pull yourself back. Make amends to those who deserve it. Then move forward. Stop holding yourself as a hostage to the past. Believe that external opinions are out of our control, none of our business and should hold no influence on our own self-acceptance. Choose to love YOU. See yourself through your own unconditionally loving eyes. Remember… You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Pennie's Life Lesson: “When you surrender to shame and guilt you are withholding love from yourself.”
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All Rights Reserved Copyright © 2013-2016 Pennie Hunt This was written and produced by Pennie Hunt. Feel free to forward this post. Please keep the entire message intact, including contact, logo, and copyright information. If you have any questions or comments, or for reprint permission please email: [email protected] |
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