Work hard! Play hard! Pray hard!

Like my Daddy always said!!!  It used to just be words on a greeting card or letter, and I guess it turned out to be a seed planted and growing inside of me.  We, in general, don’t realize the lasting effect words have on our growth or ability to stunt our

 growth.  Words are powerful tools.  The way we word things, the words we say to ourselves, the words we encourage or even discourage our children with….they all live and grow inside of us.

Luckily, my Dad always shared his bits of wisdom with my sister and I, even if we laughed or didn’t get it at the time. I went on to do many trainings learning more about personal responsibility and again, words and the way we word them have always kept popping up in my life.

By the time I was an adult, I had learned to use my words to my benefit.  I don’t mean just putting up Goal Charts, although I did that as well.  When I truly experienced the power of my words was when I found my husband.  Years before I met him, I had written out plenty of pages of what I “wanted” in my future husband. (“wanted” as opposed to what I didn’t want. That is a VERY important distinction!!!) Sometime in between his proposal and our wedding day, I found my pages of My Perfect Husband and had attracted exactly that!!! The power of our words is magical.

When we became parents, we would not only tell our children wonderful stories at bedtime and whenever they wanted, we also would do positive affirmations with them every night before falling asleep.  We do so much of our inner work in our sleep, we felt it best to send them off with wonderful words to feed their souls.  We also taught them, and our homeschool group how to do EFT aka as Tapping with positive words of affirmation so whenever they needed it, they could do it themselves and reach cellular levels.

Strong verbiage also doesn’t leave as much room for victimhood. When we use powerful words it helps create a more responsible atmosphere and empowered sense of being.  I also get to use this knowledge in my practice of facilitating, mentoring and coaching groups and people.  It works well in the business arena when hiring and working with others.  Being able to listen to their words, is a strong indicator of who you will be working with.  Many people don’t even realize how their words are an open window to their being.

Thus when I look at my life, I see how the phrase my Father always shared with me~Work hard! Play hard! Pray hard!~ has effected all areas of my life.  I see how important those words have been in my entire being.  I was also raised by my Step Mom to do my chores properly or I’d have to do them over until it was just right.  I used to feel like Cinderella back then, but now realize how that taught me excellent work ethics.  Therefore, WORK HARD has always been in my blood.  I loved excelling in school, extracurricular activities, and later in work.  If I’m going to do the work, it may as well be my best work!!!

I also grew up experiencing outdoor fun, vacations, camping and lots of fun adventures with all of my parents and households.  I later saw this as a benefit instead of a curse of a broken home, because I got to experience many ways and things to help balance me in different areas. Consequently, PLAY HARD was also a very easy thing to include in my life from childhood up.  When my own children came, I was so fortunate to have my Perfect Husband and we still enjoy and celebrate life even if just at home or on a glorious vacation.  I’ve taught my family to have fun, even in work and play.

The PRAY HARD was the area where I have had to do a lot of growth in my later years.  Forgiveness plays a huge part in healing past pains that we all tend to go through on several levels throughout life.  I used to battle with GOD in my younger years.  I blamed him for the hardship in life and in the world and wondered how he could let all of this happen. It turned me to relying on myself and my inner strength and believing I was my own GOD and repelling him.  Yet, the funny thing is that I had to believe in GOD, if I was constantly in conversation with Him, even if it was battling, being angry, and blaming Him.  Growing up with different households, I got to experience all different belief systems from religious to atheist and claimed to be agnostic for a while.  I’d dip my feet sometimes, to get turned off by some followers who seemed to be way more hypocritical than true believers.  This was an excuse to dip back out every time I got closer to GOD.  Until one day, my husband and I were having financial difficulties and had just had our second baby and were watching a local church sermon on TV and gave our problems to the Lord that day and things started to get better.  Yet, our Faith didn’t continue to grow.  We took it for granted or maybe credited ourselves for getting out of the mess?  I’m not sure, but we moved along and always had some sort of Spiritualness, just never a name for it, nor much clarity.  We’d call it the Universe or Mother Nature, or whatever we felt like, but not until the whole Covid Scam started did we realize we were in a Spiritual War and wanted to be on the Good/GOD side.

We started searching for Churches and the right fit for us.  To sum a long story up, we found our home and can look back on every instance of our lives and see where His hands were in it all, protecting and guiding us to this point.  My Dad is no longer here with us for me to thank him for his most important words of wisdom, and to share my journey with him here physically, yet my suspicion is that he also had his hands in this work as well. I know he is with me in my heart.

So, today I pray so hard that I have surrendered my need for control and self survival and can rest at ease that my prayers are answered, even if not in the way I thought they would be.  I can know in my heart that PRAY HARD is also a major part of my life.

I’d love to impart those words on to you and your family in hopes of helping with my mission in life…which is to Make the world a better place for our children’s children.