by Dianna Good Sky | Personal, Uncategorized
It is 6 days until Christmas. It is 2020, we are still in the middle of a Pandemic. My Mom died just before Christmas 11 years ago today.
Christmas is my favorite Holiday so I should be happy right now! My whole family has taken precautions, and steps for safety, amid the pandemic, in order to be together here in this house. Their childhood home, which I recently bought back (I lost it 7 years ago, and that is a story for another time). I love that they are bringing their children here and we can all be together. I should be happy.
Over the last few days, I noticed that I was a bit emotional. This morning, however, when I woke up, my emotions got away from me very quickly and I have been weepy all day. What does weepy mean? Weepy means that every single time I turn around, my eyes are tearing up and I am feeling sad, tears simply start rolling down my cheeks and I can’t even tell you why. I don’t know why. Then I realized, as I was brushing my teeth actually, and doing my normal “I love you” mirror work (thank you Louise Hay), that it has been 11 years, today, that my mother died. Right in front of me.
I stood there in front of the mirror and cried, saying over and over
“I love you, Mama.
I love you, Mama.
I miss you, Mama.
I miss you so very much.
Thank you for everything you ever did for me. For all of us.
I know you loved all of us so much.
I know you’re still here watching over us but, just once, I’d like to feel your soft skin against mine.”
I finally got myself together enough to head right back into my bed and lay still for a while. While laying there, I went back to that day, this terrible day, 11 years ago.
I need to make a correction; she died in front of as many of us (who loved her so very much) that could fit in her tiny bedroom, The bedroom where she had slowly wasted away for the previous three months.
My mom had been sick for a long time. She first contracted acute pancreatitis in 1977, the year her first grandchild, Francis, was born. She didn’t tell any of us, except to say that she had to be more careful about what she ate. As time went on, we started to understand more of what this meant. I say we, I mean my brother and sister and her husband, my stepfather Floyd. And of course, Ashley, the granddaughter that she and Floyd raised, and all her grandchildren knew.
We all knew that she would get sick, that it was painful; she couldn’t do certain things; she also had to wear soft clothing around her waist. We knew these things. What we didn’t know was how shocking it would be when the Doctor sent her home, saying there was nothing more they could do, in the fall of 2009.
We were not ready for this.
I flew in from Japan to do my part, not because anyone made me but I didn’t believe it and I just knew that if I helped her eat better, she could get better. I have to laugh at my naivety at this point, but, truly, I believe that we can only handle what we are ready for. There is no way I was ready to believe my mom would be departing this world soon. Not if I had anything to say, or do, about it. We went to work and had her upstairs bedroom made into HER room, complete with a bathroom. We knew that the stairs would be an issue and we wanted to make her as comfortable as possible. She was on a hospital bed in the living room while this modification was being made, quite cognizant, and quite able to still kick my ass in card games. Mom was a brilliant lady. We had great fun playing games when she could.
This wasn’t an easy time. She still fought me over things like butter in her oatmeal. She wanted her oatmeal the way she loved it: brown sugar and butter and milk. I wanted her to use a sugar alternative and no butter. I will never forget her stubborn face telling me she wouldn’t eat that shit. So, I’d have to go back into the kitchen and make it her way. The only way I could get her to eat was if I made things her way. That cracks me up right now but I will tell you, it was extremely frustrating at the time. You know, because I thought healthy food would cure her and all.
I also wanted her to stop smoking. I mean, seriously! Besides for her health, it was also because I was sleeping on the pull out couch in the living room where her hospital bed was. If she woke up in the night and wanted to smoke (which she did, Every. Single. Night), I would grumpily get up and put my bed away just so we could go outside in the Minnesota fall nights. Oh, Mom! How I treasure, now, those starry nights and quiet conversation! Finally, my sister Lela, helped me understand that she needed to do whatever it was that helped her feel better and I gave up that fight.
I gave her leg massages daily and it was my pleasure and my honor. Although, cutting her toenails was not my favorite part, but it had to be done. Caring for your ill loved one involves many things you really never thought you’d be doing.
The family was there for her too, I am sharing my part in this, just to be clear here. I was not alone helping with mom. I would announce loudly that it was someone else’s turn whenever I felt the need, and of course, they would step right in. We all took turns helping her.
The bedroom was almost ready and I was starting to accept the inevitable. I sat with my mom on the edge of the hospital bed and told her I would grant her any wish she wanted. What did she want? Did she want to take a trip? I would take her anywhere. London? Paris? New York? We had already been to these places together but I wanted her to know how serious I was about giving her what I realized would be a final wish.
She thought quietly for a few minutes and looked up at Floyd and then at me and said: “I want to marry Floyd again”.
Floyd, in his ever-present humor, made some kind of joke and we all laughed but, I told her we would do that.
I didn’t discuss this with her but I knew why she wanted to do this.
She wanted to declare her love for him in a big way, with all of us present. I was thrilled with this wish! I couldn’t attend their wedding in 1987, and most of her grandchildren were not present then either. Plus, I could tell how much this meant to her.
I decided that this was going to be a fabulous wedding, in her home, with all of us present. My kids didn’t live in Minnesota. Francis and his kids came in from Virginia. So did Nikole and her children. Curtis was in Japan and so was my bonus baby, Katherine. As they made plans to come home, the plans for the wedding were moving forward.
We would print out selections for flowers, take them into her room that she’d been moved into, and she would select what she wanted. We did the same for the wedding cake. She chose it all.
She asked for red, silky pajamas for her wedding “dress”.
Ashley found her wedding topper. Things were rolling along swimmingly and her house was full. She knew what was going on. She knew that they all came and it was the last time she would see them. At times, she got a bit snarky about it because she said we were trying to hide that. No, we were still in denial and it was important for us to all be together Mom, because we all love you so very much.
We took this whole wedding so seriously, and Floyd is not the serious kind of guy. I had to pull him aside and tell him, with tears in my eyes, that he had to ask Mom to marry him all over again. You see, my mom is the love of Floyd’s life. There is NO WAY he was ready to say goodbye to her. His humor was the way he was dealing with this great loss, to be sure. But, I wanted their wedding to be perfect in every way, and that meant a proposal from him. He agreed to do it, almost losing his composure, but he held it together. He is a Marine after all. He asked her during a commercial while they were watching a football game together. I was proud of him for following through.
I went shopping for her wedding dress. Now, our family home on the Indian Reservation is up in the boonies of northern Minnesota. It was December. She wanted red silky pajamas. Yikes.
Finally, in my 3rd store, at the K-Mart, I turned into the women’s section to see, all by itself, one last pair of red silky pajamas, in her size. I immediately broke down in tears and crumpled right there on the K-Mart floor, clinging to those pajamas as if my life depended on them. I was so grateful to get exactly what she wanted. My mom had worked so hard all of her life, and her life had been a hard one, finding the pajamas she wanted as a wedding dress was the very least I could do.
I took them home to her and she loved them.
Finally, the big day arrived!
It was a Monday. All of us were crammed in her home. The Nett Lake Baptist minister, Kevin Lasley, came in to do the ceremony. If you’ve read my first book, you know that my grandma was a product of the Boarding Schools so all of her children were raised as Christian and because of the way the Indigenous Americans were treated there, my grandma thought it was best for her kids to be Christian.
Mom surprised all of us by telling us that she wanted to stand. She was less than 100 pounds at this point but she insisted. She stood for the whole ceremony. My sister Lela and her husband, Fred, stood up for Floyd and Mom. We forgot a very important detail, a camera. At some point, along the way, someone said “Hey! Who’s got a camera!” oops. Someone took out their flip phone and tried to take photos. I assure you, the picture of my mom, standing there, shakily yes but still standing there with Floyd next to the Christmas tree, is forever etched in my mind but we do wish we could have gotten pictures of this beautiful event.
This would be the last time my mom stood up.
We got mom back into her bed, she enjoyed some of the amazing wedding cake made by my daughter, and she was exhausted. But, we pulled it off! It was amazing.
That week, we saw things happening that signalled the end was very close. She had finally given up smoking a few weeks before (she couldn’t get up any longer to smoke) and her days were spent in and out of sleep. The wonderful Hospice folks helped us enormously through this time. We helped each other.
She also spoke frequently about seeing people who had passed before her. We weren’t sure what it meant but then she started refusing food. It was getting so close and we couldn’t tell if she was fighting to stay or if she had given over to the idea that her time had come. On Friday night, the 18th, we all decided that we each needed to tell her it was ok to go. We would be ok. We knew she needed to know that we would be ok. We knew she must be suffering, even if she wouldn’t admit that to us. We all took our turns letting her know that. It wasn’t easy but it had to be done. For her.
At some point early in the evening, she needed to use the restroom. Now, mom had said at the beginning that she would never wear Depends and none of her children would be wiping her ass. So, we had installed a bidet in her bathroom and we always helped her go, in privacy. This night was no different, except that she was so weak after she went to the bathroom that I had to call my oldest, Francis, in to help her get into bed. My big boy with his strong arms ever so gently picked up his grandma and carefully put her back into her bed. The love (and care) he showed while doing this was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen.
She was still in the red, silky pajamas. We kept trying to change her but she would adamantly refuse. We finally figured out that she had decided she wanted to die in them. All we could do was honor her wish. Until she “crashed” that is. She was a diabetic and her sugar went so low that she broke out in a sweat and drenched her pajamas. My sister and I joked about finally being able to get her out of those pajamas but that she was going to kick our butts when she became cognizant again.
We were all very restless that night. We all took short turns being with her on this night. She barely spoke, we knew the time was near. Ashley came out and told us she thought it was time. We all crowded into the room.
We all told her how much we loved her.
We watched her vein throbbing in her neck.
Until it didn’t.
My son cried out: “I’m not ready!”
I cried out: “no!”
The rest is a blur.
Until the gentleman came from the funeral home. He came alone.
He asked if someone could help carry my mom.
He had put her in a body bag. My son, who earlier, had ever so gently got her back into bed was the only one who could possibly help. It broke my heart, again, to watch him have to carry his grandma, this time in a body bag.
At the funeral, the same minister who did their wedding ceremony spoke about it. He spoke of feeling so much love in the house while he was there. He spoke about the legacy of love that she built, and left, in our family. I was happy, and I knew she was too, that this was her legacy, and it was noticeable outside of her family.
It has been 11 years. It took some time to get through the day without feeling a void. It took even longer to be able to celebrate Christmas as we buried her on the 23rd. I have learned so much since her passing. You see, she came to visit me a few years ago.
For some reason, I was especially tired on this particular day in 2016. I normally do not take naps but I was really really tired this day so I laid down. It was around 2 pm. Once asleep, I started dreaming about me and my kids going on a trip. We were in what looked like the presidential suite at the Homestead Resort. In my dream, I decided to lay down. I thought my eyes were closed but I saw her.
She came towards me and I immediately knew it was my mom. Except, instead of being sick and unhealthy, she was young and beautiful. Her hair was shoulder-length, even though she never had shoulder-length hair while on earth. It was dark and wavy. As she sat on my bed in my dream, I could “hear” her words though she didn’t speak out loud. It was as if I was reading her thoughts. She told me she loved me, and she missed me but that she was perfectly fine now. She was happy and she wanted me to tell everyone something. She asked me to tell everyone that everything really is going to be alright. She asked me specifically to tell my brother and sister, all the children. I told her (without speaking), that I would. I told her how happy I was to see her. And how beautiful she was! We had a great conversation, without speaking, and I could feel her warm touch on my leg where her hand rested.
Finally, she said she should go and she reminded me to tell everyone. As many as I could. Everything really will be alright.
She got up to leave and I realized that I was in my bedroom, and that is where she had been too. I wasn’t sure how this could happen but I did know with my dad’s near-death experience (read about it in my book, Warrior Spirit Rising), speaking without words was something that happened to him in his experience so it wasn’t that far fetched. Or was it? I didn’t care. I picked up the phone and immediately did as I was told. I told my family.
And now I am sharing it with you all. Why? Because my mom raised a good girl. One who listens to their mom, even if she had been gone from this world for years when the message came through.
Also, because even though I still miss her like crazy, especially during the Holidays, it is extremely comforting to me to know that she is, in fact, happy, and joyful and is there watching over all of us. Giving us love as she did in her earthly presence.
If you know someone grieving, most do silently, reach out to them. Just let them know that you are thinking about them. Tell them they are special. Tell them they make you smile.
Just.
Reach.
Out.
Nothing more is so important as to let people know you care.
I care for you. I hope you know that you are loved.
And
I hope you find comfort in these words.
I love you, Mama.
Thank you for everything.
by Dianna Good Sky | author update
Hey everyone! I know it has been a little while since I’ve posted an author update, but clearly that’s because I’ve been so busy working on my new book Warrior Spirit Rising!
When people see the title and the cover, it may seem appealing to them. But the first thing they’re going to do when they find themselves on Amazon is look at the reviews. They need a little guidepost to decide if they want to invest their time in reading. And this story is important. It needs to reach more people.
If you have already read the book and left a review, thank you! This means so much to us.
Also, you have likely noticed my website looks a little different! We’ve been working hard on updating it. My sister in law, Mel Good Sky, who is also the photographer for the book cover, has been working behind the scenes to re-do everything to reflect the new direction I’m taking with authoring. If you have time to poke around on the new website, let us know if you have any suggestions! We’ll be sharing more of my culture and activities as well as updates on the next book, Blue Eyed Chippewa, that I’m currently working on.
If you’ve read Warrior Spirit Rising, you may recall how, when my dad was in the Navy, he took us home every September for ricing season. Because ricing season coincides with the beginning of the school year, we would actually start school in Nett Lake every year because we spent the first month there with him while he was ricing. Dad would save up his leave every year – in the Navy you get 30 days of leave. He would take the full 30 days in Minnesota so we could go home for ricing.
That is how important this culturally significant time is for us. So I’m going home for ricing this year. My dad wants me to paddle him around in the canoe. He told me to start lifting weights to get my arms ready for all of that hard work. So we’re going to document all of it! The next newsletter you see in your inbox will be more about ricing. It will have photographs and video and we’ll share it here on the blog as well. Sign up for my newsletter so you don’t miss it!
I really can’t wait to share this with you. We’ll be diving deeper into the Anishinaabe culture and show you the world of Nett Lake, Minnesota. Nett Lake has the finest wild rice in the world, just so you know.
Oh! One more thing. Several people have reached out to me asking where they can get the book locally. If you’re in Northern Minnesota, you’re in luck. You can find copies of the book at T. Pattenn’s cafe in Orr. Rustic Railings has them for sale. Richardson’s Resort also has them for sale. I recently got a call from the Bois Forte Heritage Center and they are also going to carry the book! I am so grateful for all of these guys!
That’s it for this author update. Don’t forget! These reviews are super important, so if you have a couple minutes, your words will make such a difference. Thank you everyone!
by Dianna Good Sky | Get Your Mind On, Mindset
Letting Go Of Your Past To Build A New Future
For this blog topic I decided to talk about letting go of your past, and that what has happened in your past doesn’t really matter and doesn’t determine your future. So the real question is, how do you get past what’s happened in your past.
The reason that I decided to talk about this tonight is because lately I’ve been inundated it seems with a lot of emails and a lot of Facebook advertising about removing blocks. A lot of their advertising actually has resonated with me. I mean have you ever found yourself comparing yourself or your progress with other people?
For example, say in your business you see other people having success and you think, why not me? or even others losing weight. People who have lost weight then only to gain it back. It’s really fascinating to me how things like that can happen and how it really is a matter of what has happened in your past and letting go of your past.
I believe that it’s true what Bob Proctor says in his ‘Thinking into Results Program’ and a lot of his videos that I’ve watched he talks about how if a person is never able to let go or change or make a change in their behavior, it’s usually because they are still holding on to things that have happened in the past. The only way to move on from that is to identify what ‘that’ is and learn to let go of your past.
Watch my following video where I explain in more depth…
Letting Go Of Your Past By Releasing
A lot of these hangups come in the form of what we call paradigms, or what’s already been planted in in our minds. A lot of them too you might not even recognize what has happened and you may not even realize yourself why the yo yo dieting is happening to you or why in your relationships, that you keep attracting the same type of person to you.
Now let’s face it, there are jerks etc everywhere and they are usually not nice to you in the long haul. It’s a matter of identifying what exactly has happened in the past and sometimes it’s hard to identify but I want to share a message that I learned today, I heard it today and it really, really hit home.
Once you make the declaration about moving forward and then not looking back, those things have a way of releasing.
You can release that and then you can create your future and really let go of anything that might be holding you back. I think that that’s the biggest key, because once you relax about what exactly is it, once you relax that notion then you’re able to move forward and say, okay, well you know what? I don’t want to worry about that right now, what I want to do is I want to move forward and I just want to say, I need to move into my future and then I need to release that hold that the past has on me.
Learning to ‘release’ is really letting go of your past.
What will happen then is that as you move into the future, things will start to happen for you that you’ll be able to at some point say, “oh, I get it now”.
I see what was holding me back and I can then let it go and then move on forward, really move forward and things at that point will start happening really, really fast. I want to encourage you to not worry about anything that you feel might be holding you back or if you’re wondering what could it be, don’t worry about it.
Make the decision instead, to create your future and do not allow the past to hold you back. In time and in very short order you will notice things starting to fall into place for you and letting go of your past will come easy!
You can identify it, you can release it and then things will really start happening.
Remember… You are awesome. You are amazing. You are beautiful. I know that, and I want you to know that about you too!
To YOUR Success,
Dianna
Email: Dianna@DiannaGoodSky.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/diannagoodsky
Dianna Good Sky’s Blog
P.S. Don’t forget to take the plunge and join in on the live stream fun by downloading your FREE Facebook Live Checklist simple CLICK HERE to get yours now!
by Dianna Good Sky | Confidence, Favorite, Get Your Mind On, Mindset
Self Image for Kids
I wanted to post today about self-image because I don’t know if you’ve been following along, but we’ve been doing kids mindset training and it’s actually day 30 on their mindset training and I’ve stated before their remarkable progress that we’ve been seeing just spending 30 minutes a day, sometimes longer like tonight because it was the end of the first 30 days.
We have just started a new topic and our new topic for this next 30 days is about self-image and I want to tell a story about a farmer that I just heard. It’s funny because you think, “What does a farmer have to do with self-image?” Well, I’m going to tell you what a farmer has to do with self-image.
Click play on the video to hear me tell the story…
I Can Help You Work On Your Self Image
If you haven’t visited my blog before, my name is Dianna Good Sky and I like to help entrepreneurs, well anyone actually, I like to help anyone get into their best life, get into the best mindset to create the life you love and to create your own #beautiFULLife. That’s what I like to do and we’ve been experimenting, I’ve been teaching the children how to do some of the same things that I’ve used for success and it’s just remarkable.
Tonight, the story of the farmer has to do with self image and self-image is how you see yourself?
Apparently, the story goes that a farmer was out doing his thing in his field. It was a pumpkin patch and the pumpkin patch, he found a jug in the middle of the pumpkin patch and that he decided just for whatever, grins and giggles I guess you could say. He decided for grins and giggles just to put the pumpkin, the small pumpkin that had started growing inside the jug.
He was very careful not to make sure or to make sure that he did not mess up the vine so it could still grow. Here it is. Time passed. I don’t know how long it takes to grow a pumpkin, but time passed and when he came across the jug, the pumpkin had literally grown inside that glass jug to the exact shape and form that the jug was so the pumpkin instead of being round and pretty and whatever, it was the shape of the jug.
Self image is like that. Our self-image is all about what do we see ourselves as and that is exactly what we become. Whatever we see ourselves as, whatever we think of ourselves as, that is exactly what we grow into and that is exactly what we become. If we have limited self image, if we have limiting beliefs about who we are or can be, that self image actually we grow into just that.
It’s really important to be very mindful about what your self image is so that you can … Because you have control over that. The difference between that glass jug and that pumpkin and our self-image is that we can change our self-image and we can adapt and adjust and overcome anything we want to create a new self image.
What we did with the kids is first we identified what we think about ourselves.
- What characteristics?
- What traits do we have?
- What do we think of ourselves?
and then what we did, we did an exercise about how to … Who can we think of, that maybe has the traits that we want in ourselves or that we want to grow.
Who do we want to be and I talked to them … I talked about copying it. Copying a trait, a personally trait or character trait, if it’s what allows you to grow into the person that you want to be, that’s not saying you’re copying that person exactly.
That’s not saying like, “Oh, I want to be like Oprah Winfrey exactly.”
No, you probably just have a few points about Oprah that you might want to emulate, very different from just copying, but you do want to emulate those character traits. Being able to identify which character trait from who is important to you is the first step in starting to grow into your new self image.
If you spend some time, let’s pick a character trait of Oprah in that she’s impactful. Her work is impactful, is important or say let’s pick somebody less … Say you want to be a positive thinker. Say you want to make good decisions. Who do you know that makes good swift decisions? Then you can say to yourself, “Okay, I want John Doe’s decision making process or his etc … I want to make decisions like John Doe.”
You see?
Whatever those character traits are that you want, you can then help yourself become like that by revisiting daily, this is what we’re going to do for the next 30 days, revisiting daily the image that we’ve created, that we want … Look, it doesn’t have to be just one. The kids aren’t doing one, but if you’re going to do this and I want to encourage you to do it, identify traits of people that you admire and respect.
If there’s four different traits from four different people, alive or dead, it doesn’t matter, but that you know enough that is what you want to be like or you want to have those traits, then write those down and then take some time and then act as if you already have those traits. Act as if you already have those traits because that is what allows us to really get into the, “How do I become exactly who I want to become?”
I want to reiterate here. You’ve probably heard this saying before, but you cannot accomplish anything on mere hopes and wishes and dreams. You have to really believe that you can. The first step to believing that you can do anything or that you can become the person that you want to become or do the things you want to, comes with the knowledge and the decision that that’s what you’re going to do.
Follow it up with creating new habits that allow you to then move forward in creating the habits and moving forward into exactly what you were wanting to accomplish or exactly who you wanted to be like so that you could then accomplish them. Does that make sense? I want to encourage you to really pay attention to what your self image is.
Take some time. Write a whole lot of things … Write as many things as you can down to what is my self-image, but who do I want to become?
Who do I really want to be like and take some time identifying who is like that that you might be able to emulate and then visualize yourself.
Those are the three steps.
Identify who has it and then visualize yourself being like that that you wanted. You can change your personality. You can change your whole demeanor depending on doing that every day, imagining every chance you get. If you want to be a speaker on a stage, every chance you get you imagine yourself just, “I’m there. I’m changing people’s lives.” Can you tell that’s mine?
If you want to be an author, imagine signing books like one of your most revered author friends or people that you know or admire. If you want to be an actor or an actress, imagine yourself a comedian, imagine yourself being like Jim Carrey. Whatever it is, whoever it is, take the time and start imagining yourself being in that position, having those traits and soon you will find that you have adopted the same things that they have that you want.
That my friends is creating your self image to be able to accomplish and do anything that you want according to what you’re thinking about. Thank you for reading my blog today and If you know anyone that might be able to use a message on self image or if you just want to share this post I totally appreciate it.
You are awesome. You are amazing. You are beautiful. I know that, and I want you to know that about you too!
To YOUR Success,
Dianna
Email: Dianna@DiannaGoodSky.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/diannagoodsky
Dianna Good Sky’s Blog
P.S. Don’t forget to take the plunge and join in on the live stream fun by downloading your FREE Facebook Live Checklist simple CLICK HERE to get yours now!
by Dianna Good Sky | Get Your Mind On, Inspiration, Mindset
Shooting for your dreams!
How do you know when it’s okay to shoot for your dream? I didn’t want to miss this opportunity to talk to you about shooting for your dreams and when is it okay to say, “Screw it. I’m just going to go for it.”
Well, I want to tell you that every time in your life that you have come across something that was a little hard, there are two things that you can do.
You can either push through it, or you can take a step back into comfort and safety. Most people, the majority of people actually, do step back into the safety zone because they’re just not exactly sure if they can get through the hard stuff and accomplish their dream.
They don’t know how, and not being able to know, or not knowing and not having faith that the ‘how’ will somehow present itself, usually prevents people from taking that step into their dream life. Isn’t that sad?
Many people will actually go to their grave wondering about what would it have been like if they would have just taken the chance and made a decision and said YES I’m going to start shooting for my dreams.
Watch the following video where I discuss how you can start shooting for your dreams!
Shooting For Your Dreams By Letting Go Of The Past
I wanted to share this message with you today, because if we take our mind back to childhood, every time that you encountered something that you needed to do, that kind of was scary we would often back out.
I’ll give you an example: For me, one time when I was, I don’t know, about nine or 10, something like that, I was in a school musical and I had a solo. I guess the teacher thought I was good enough to have a solo act, but somewhere along the way, I got way too shy. If you know my story, you know that I grew up extremely shy, and I still am shy, believe it or not.
But I was so shy and so afraid that on the night of the performance, I chickened out. I let the terror barrier get to me, and I allowed my fear to fully overtake what I knew I wanted to do. But I was just so afraid of standing up in front of everybody, I got in my head that they were going to laugh at me, or I was going to mess up on the keys.
Somewhere in there, I got it in my head that I wasn’t good enough to do that solo act.
You know, when I look at my children and my grandchildren now and I just think, “Oh, my gosh. I don’t ever want them to feel that way.” I just don’t. I don’t want any of my friends or family, I don’t want anybody to feel that way. But it’s so normal, it’s so normal, and I felt so bad about that act because I felt guilty for so long after that because I knew. I knew that I shouldn’t have let people down.
It was terrible, but I allowed my fear to push me back into not taking a chance of doing a solo act.
A few years later, I had a chance to do something kind of similar in my mind where I know now that I was approaching the terror barrier. I didn’t know then, but I know that, and it was, believe it or not, diving off a 20-foot diving board. In my mind, because I had reconciled with my guilt over not performing in the solo act, I was, like, “You know what? I’m not going to back down because I know how bad I felt when I did back down, so I’m going to barrel through, and I’m just going to do it,” and I did it. I did it.
I dove off. It wasn’t very pretty, but I did it. A lot of people were walking up to the diving board because it was … 20 feet is pretty darn high, and it was very high. Very, very high. We were actually in an Olympic pool, and so, maybe it was even higher than that. I don’t know measurements too well.
But, anyway, so I did it, and so many people were going up, and I felt so good. I also felt like, you know what, I kind of felt better about leaving my classmates in a rut, or in a bind, because I didn’t do what I said I was going to do. I think that kind of shaped my life, too, because I think that I realized that when I have the chance to do something good and to do that solo act and just, you know, she chose me out of everybody.
When I didn’t do it, I think it kind of formed me into realizing that that’s not the kind of person that I want to be.
But, anyway, what does that have to do with shooting for your dreams?
Well it has everything to do with dreams because a lot of times, when we’re faced with a decision or a new life circumstance, or anything like that, a terror can grip us and kind of say, “You know what? I don’t know if I can push through this. I don’t know how to push through this. I have no idea how to get past this, and I don’t know if I want whatever dream it is,” whether it’s running a marathon or owning your own company, whatever your dream is.
But being able to say to yourself and understand that, you know what? You’ve got what it takes. Whatever it is, you do have what it takes to push through your own fear, and get to the other side. Imagine the freedom that exists in your mind and in your body, every part of you. When you push through it.
When you get to the other side, though, you have complete freedom and that, my friend will allow you then, to go on and do other things. So I want to encourage you it doesn’t matter what your dream is. I just want you to know that you can do it. You can.
You do have the ability to start shooting for your dreams!
If you have fear, that’s normal. If you have angst about it, it’s normal. But when you decide that you’re going to do it, whatever it is, you will. So whatever your dream is, just know you can accomplish anything you want to. Know that. I know that about you.
Again, I want you to please start shooting for your dreams because if you don’t, you’ll get to the end of your life and you’ll say, “What if I had?” And trust me, you don’t want to be there. You don’t want to say that so just remember….
You are awesome. You are amazing. You are beautiful. I know that, and I want you to know that about you too!
To YOUR Success,
Dianna
Email: Dianna@DiannaGoodSky.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/diannagoodsky
Dianna Good Sky’s Blog
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