Annie Anderson | Blog

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In part one of this series from Thursday, I left you with the thought that we can get beyond the stories by realizing that change is possible. Change is ok - it helps us grow, share and can even help us become stronger. It’s like a tool, if you will.

The first step to embracing change is trusting that the Universe knows exactly what it’s doing. At every moment, it’s operating just as it should be. There is an underlying balance and order to all things, a cycle of life that continues on and on. We must trust, then, trust that the Universe (or God or whatever you wish to call it) is answering your every question, your every thought, your every whim. You just haven’t caught up with some of them yet.

As a result of this cycle, you must understand that at every moment, you have a choice. You can choose to be happy, to be sad, to be angry, to be worried, to be anxious or whatever other emotion you care to attach. It’s your choice.

Let me tell you here and now - happiness IS a choice. It is not something that happens to you. It is not something outside of you. It is not caused by something or someone else. It comes from within - a choice you consciously choose at any given moment.

And this is one fundamental truth that must be acknowledged.

Your state of being is directly related to YOUR OWN INNER COMPASS. Your own thoughts. Your own will power. Your own consciousness. Nothing else. It does not live outside of you. It only dwells within. You can be happy simply because you decide to.

Imagine that!

No matter what else is going on in your life, you can learn to trust the process and know that whatever happens, is happening for a reason. There are no accidents, no coincidences. And when you begin to take this to heart, you will learn to become peaceful. You will find joy.

And then, an interesting thing will begin to happen - when we operate our daily lives from a place of joy, trusting in the Universe for our every need, things begin to come our way. All the things we truly desire and wish for, begin to appear in our lives. It’s almost as if we’ve found luck.

But really, it was there all along, simply waiting for us to open up and embrace it.

In other words, stories don’t have to rule our lives. We don’t have to let them encumber us, weigh us down, make us heavy and depressed. We can acknowledge the bad along with the good and find joy in the learning. We can find joy in simplicity. We can find joy simply because we can!

This is one of the greatest things about being human - we have our own thoughts, our own will. And we are free to use it. When we use our free will while trusting in the Universe, miracles and magic happens. Doors open.

You have a door open before you today. The door of inner peace. Of inner joy. Walk through it and empower your life.

Start by choosing to be happy.

Next time, we’ll talk about how to be happy when we’d rather be sad.

In the arena,

Make $10k in a weekend - “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business - just as if it were her own.

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Stories make us who we are. Yes, it’s true. They certainly do. But, we must realize we are so much more than those stories. We must learn to move beyond the stories and just Be. And we must understand - we are NOT our stories. They do not have to define who we are. Each of us has a unique gift, something to share with the world around us. In the hubbub of every day life, sometimes those gifts get lost or buried under all those stories and as a result we can’t find our way.

I really got to thinking about this last night when I was in the walk-in clinic with my husband who tried to take off his thumb at work. Ok, well, it wasn’t quite that bad. But it sure was nasty.

He was holding a granite slab and his boss, who was on the forklift, was getting ready to clamp onto the slab so they could move it around the warehouse. Well, somehow - nobody is quite sure - the clamp grazed his hand, pulling the thumbnail nearly off and causing a hell of a lot of blood. Just before quitting time, of course.

So he got home last night, hand all bandaged up and tried to tough it out. I called my mom (a radiologist) to ask her about meds (he’d taken aspirin which hadn’t put a dent in his discomfort) and she promptly put together a package of gauze and tape and bandage-y type stuff and brought them over. While she was on her way, we rinsed it well with sea salt water and once she got here, we decided he should see a doctor. Mostly because he looked rather peaked and was having trouble processing his thoughts coherently. (I’m guessing he was in a heck of a lot more pain than he let on which is unusual for him because he’s quite the whiner when he’s ill or hurt. )

I guess the admin gals at the front desk thought he looked a bit worse for ware, too, because we were ushered in to see the intake nurse within just a couple of minutes. I hadn’t even finished filling out his paperwork.

Fortunately, since it was obviously draining, there wasn’t a need to drill the nail to release the pressure or anything but because of the clamp situation, he was given a tetanus shot as well as antibiotics. The doctor cleaned it up some more and dressed it all with ointment and a pressure bandage. And he’ll have to change the bandage every day at least once, if not twice, for the next several weeks until the new nail takes form.

Anyway, this all got me to thinking about stories and getting rid of things in our lives which don’t work or changing our course just a little bit so they do. I began thinking how our stories shape how we think, how we feel, what we do (or don’t do) and where our lives ultimately lead.

It became clear to me how my husbands childhood thoroughly affected how he handled the situation. He treated it like one of those, “ignore it and it will go away” things. Not me. I went into what my family calls “fix it mode.”

Now, when I was growing up, my mom was much the same way. She just gets in there and automatically, somehow, knows exactly what needs to be done. No wavering, no worrying, no wondering what should be done. It just gets done. And that’s what I do, too. We don’t freak out, we don’t get upset or angry or emotional. (Until it’s over, anyway!)

I began to wonder what stories made my husband react and act how he did. What caused him to downplay (in his own mind) the severity of the injury and his resistance to doing anything about it. He didn’t even seem to know what nearly anyone who’s ever had any kind of injury knows - to elevate the injured body part.

The good news is - we can learn to get beyond the stories. We can learn to accept that just because a certain thing happened in our past, doesn’t mean we have to continue on that way. We can change our world for the better.

And it starts by realizing that change is possible.

(Stay tuned for part 2.)

Oh - and by the way - I haven’t forgotten about my before and after office pics. Just haven’t had time with all the other fun stuff going on to get them out of the camera. Hopefully this weekend will slow down a bit. Or probably not. It’s my mom’s birthday Sunday.
In the arena,

Make $10k in a weekend - “Too good to be true.” That’s the first thing I said when
I heard of http://tinyurl.com/5lq2g4. You can’t REALLY make $10K in a weekend. But I quickly bit my tongue once I saw the content. . .

Annie Anderson is a freelance copywriter and graphic designer specializing in the small business and real estate markets. Her tagline “Making your business, my business” means that she’ll take the utmost care when creating words and images for your business - just as if it were her own.

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I have a question I’d like to ask you today. And it’s sort of a serious question but before I ask you, let me share a little story.

The last time I wrote here a few weeks ago, I told you about my oldest daughters life threatening experience and how it pushed me into examining a few things in my own life pathway. And as the weeks have passed since then, I’ve sort of let a lot of things just coast - projects I wasn’t into whole-heartedly, books I couldn’t get into fully, tasks that seemed less important. Now, I wouldn’t say I deeply examined each of these areas but I did just sit quietly without distractions at times and just listened to my inner voice.

You know, a lot of people get so caught up in their daily lives - work, commuting, family, Little League, and all those things, that the true meaning of their lives is lost in the fray. Before you know it, life has passed you by and you’re left wondering where it all went.

When I was 18, my niece, with whom I was very close, passed away after a lengthy battle with cancer. She was 8 years old. I remember thinking that all the things I wanted to do life paled in comparison to the importance of family and relationships. I remember thinking that the inner voice was my best guide through life and I should listen to it at all times.

Unfortunately, as they say “life gets in the way” and I haven’t always listened to that inner voice. Periodically throughout the years, I’ve stopped to do so and always instantly felt calmer, happier, healthier and more wealthy. But something always distracted me from that. Or, I should say, I allowed myself to be distracted from that.

So, what’s this all about, Annie? I can hear you asking.

Well, it’s simple. The question I want to ask you today is Do you take the time to listen to your inner voice? Do you take the time to know exactly what you want out of life? And to go after it?

Or are you sitting on the sidelines wondering why things don’t go your way? Wondering why you have not yet reached any of those goals and ambitions you held as a young adult?

Let me tell you - it’s not too late to choose the life you want, beginning now. Remember that NOW is all we have. Yesterday is gone forever and tomorrow has not yet arrived.

Today, right now, I am making a pact with you - I will live each day in fulfillment of my desires, going in the direction of my life purpose and mission.

If you’ve looked at my “About” page, you may have seen my mission stated there. It says,

“To use my compassion, writing and intuitive gifts to inspire others to reach their full potential and discover their Personal Power.”

And that’s it. Yours is likely different. It could be to be the best mom or dad you possibly can be. It might be to the best wife or husband possible. Perhaps it’s to help others in some way. Whatever it is, I encourage you to start living your life from it.

Why? Because when you live from your inner-most purpose, everything else falls into place. I’ve seen this in my own life. And I can pinpoint each time I’ve fallen away from that. Things start getting harder, more complicated, less fun. I can always tell when I need to readjust.

I suspect the problem for most people is one of a couple different things -

1. You think things are too far out of whack to get back on the right track.
2. You have no idea where to start or how to get things back on the right track.
3. You have no idea where you’re going in the first place.

Well, I know from personal experience that it’s never too late to get things back on the right track. And that while it may seem like a daunting task to get things going where you want them to go, it’s truly liberating once you’ve begun. All it takes is getting started. Just one step. Then another. And another. And pretty soon, you’re there! And you feel good!

Start today.

We’ll speak again soon,

Annie

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It’s been a while since I posted on this site. Lots of things happening. Some good, some not so good. But all of them have given me a broader perspective and that is a wonderful thing.

You know, I’m generally a pretty private person and even though I have given glimpses of insight into my life, I don’t really discuss myself or my family much publicly. But today, I do want to share something immensely personal that has been a major factor in my changing perspective of late.

And that is something that happened just a couple of days ago on Wednesday.

My 14 year old daughter had a tooth that suddenly became infected a few months ago and as a result, we were referred by our dental clinic to a specialist at the University of Washington Hospital. They have a huge waiting list but thankfully, they managed to get her in last week to begin treatment - a root canal - which they do in 3-4 visits to help lessen the trauma. Her appointment last week went well although she was quite sore for a few days following the treatment.

This week, however, she had a severe reaction shortly afterwards and luckily we were still at the UW Hospital when it occurred. Her blood pressure dropped to a dangerous level and she began convulsing.

The staff at the UW is wonderful. They went quickly and yet discreetly into action and managed to stabilize her very fast but it was all so overwhelming for her that she had a mild anxiety attack, which I’m sure contributed a lot to whole thing and probably actually began before the blood pressure issue.

Much to my relief, the doctors are certain it was a result of how much pain she was in at the time and not a medical condition or anything to worry about. Since she’s not the kind to complain a lot even when in considerable pain, it’s often hard to tell exactly how much she does hurt and it seems they underestimated her pain level. Once they administered some ibuprofen after they got her blood pressure back up, she was fine and we were able to walk out of the hospital and head home.

She’s fine now, albeit still a little embarrassed by what happened and still a little sore from the second phase of the procedure on Wednesday. She’s been resting the past few days and is trying to keep up on the ibuprofen and hopefully by her next appointment next week, she’ll be ready.

Now, thankfully I’m not one to get hysterical in these situations although I will tell you I was scared out of my mind. And even though it was MY daughter, I did keep a level head and managed to stay calm.

Until yesterday. When the magnitude of the whole thing suddenly became clear to me.

And that’s what’s caused a few aha moments for me, maybe brought me back to things that are most important in my life.

So, although I will continue writing (and with any luck, I’ll have some great assignments coming up) and all those things I normally do, I doubt I will be posting on the blog every day as I had been. At least for a couple months here while I sort out some stuff in order to head in the direction I really want to go with my writing and music endeavors.

I do plan to post as often as possible and who knows, maybe it will be every day. But right now, I’m just intent on taking things day by day and see where they lead me.

I hope you enjoy your Memorial Day weekend if you’re in the US and I’ll see you again soon!

Until next time,

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A wonderful 4+ minute video from Iyanla Vanzant - perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just about you loving someone else or them loving you . . .

It’s also about loving YOURSELF.

Happy Valentine’s Day! May it open your eyes to your full potential.

~ Annie

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