Smiling is the way to let others know your soul is home

What makes us smile? What is the genesis for a smile to sprout? Why do we sometimes smile so joyfuly and other times we feel only the emptiness and lack of that glitter from the soul?

I have found just recently that similing is more a decision than a feeling. We all face struggles and obstacles in the everyday performance of life, but how we cope and manage those drawbacks is what let us keep smiling or not.

It is so easy to darw a smile when everything seems fine around us! But what happens next when we are covered by heaps of trouble and madness? I have to confess it was my habit to condemn and judge others because they almost never ever smiled but now I am aware that there are periods of the life in which circumstances make it SO unlikely to show a smile in the face.

I admire people who can still smile among a fire of bad luck -if there is such a thing as ´bad luck´- and who not only do that but who keep the strength to have a contagious smile and make others smile as well. I have met some enlighted souls who cheer others in the midst of their own hard troubles! How do they do that??

I believe that is only possible when I DECIDE to keep smiling no matter what! Yes!! I have to take that DECISION to smile even when things are going terrible or out of my control. It is no one´s choice but mine to keep smiling when so many things are going bad around me!

What about you? Have you been smiling lately eventhough your circumstances look too bad? Can you still remember when was the last time you showed a true, sincere smile generated right at the center of your heart?

Think about it…oh! and smile!!!

Blessings and kisses,

Jamie Velasco

“Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.” – Michel de Montaigne

Have you ever been so involved and obsessed with something that people around you notice it just by looking briefly at you? That´s the kind of charatcer needed in order to reach our goals.

We are ENERGY, that´s for sure, and that energy inside us can be our more important and useful ally as it can work as a magnet to attract other people to help us in our pursuit of our goals. That energy has to be POSITIVE because we humans like to be surrounded by ponds of love and peace.

Showing GRATITUDE should be one of the very first petals to blossom in this garden of positive energy. Due to our own nature we don´t want to be in company of an individual who never show or behave with a ´thank you´ attitude. How many people around you is willing to help you? Have you observed this lately? How grateful have you been to them?

If we´re truly obsessed in making a dream come true, it´s very easy to become selfish, and there for gratitude is at stake moment after moment.

Let´s become involved and commited in pursuing to make our dreams come true but with an attitude that make other people want to help us. Why don´t we begin right away by saying ´thank you´ to that lovely soul who´s next to us? Perhaps that simple gesture could be one of the keys to unleash our success!

Hope this might be of some value for you.

Blessings and kisses.

Jamie Velasco

THANK YOU – DIDO

Pour rainbows of encouragement over yourself!!

Some times my heart is like a real roller coaster- it goes down and then it goes up dpending on my circumstances!

How fast I tend to change my state of mind depending on what´s going on around me. One day I can be as happy as a butterfly in the garden, observing the colorful flowers and admiring the awesome landscape. Next day could be as gray and blue as a graveyard!

When these emotional changes attack me and my heart, I have to remember all the good things I´ve done in the past. There are hundred if not thousands of ocassions in which I have conquered what I´d aimed and found myself triumphant against challenges. But I have to be over and over again refreshing my heart and my soul with rainbows of positive energy and cheering up myself with the sunlight of my own empowerment.

I invite you and encourage you to be remembering that you can achieve anything you propose yourself to get. Remember that YOU are the only one responsible to cheer up yourself, for no one else with do that better than you!

Kisses and blessings,

Jamie Velasco

Hotel Villa Florencia

This is so beautiful!

What ever you focus on, you get!

When you look at the roses, do you focus in the thorns? Or do you delight your sight contemplating the tender and soft petals?

I am the kind of person who tries not to pay much attention in the ugly things of life. It costs the same amount of money to sting a finger with the thorn of a rose, or to invest precious time smelling the pleasant scent of the flower!

How do you spend your time in your home? What do you talk about on dinner time? What are your inner thoughts when you are facing an adverse situation?

The principle is quite simple- If you are the kind of person who is talking over and over again about the economic crisis, the oil spill, the murder of infants around the world, etc., etc., guess what? You will get more and more of that same life-cake in your life!

Take this very moment to ponder what your thoughts have been in the last hours, days or weeks? What have you been focusing on since you made your New Year´s Resolutions? Do you still remember them? If not, why did you forget them? What are you focusing on?

For each hour you loose focus on the important and strategic matters of life, you loose sixty seconds of enhancement! Only if you focus in the significant things of life, you will transform action into satisfaction.

Remember as well that each moment you do not work to build your freedom, someone else will be taking another decision to weave a transparent cage to keep you trapped and away from your dearest dreams!

You definitely have to be building your path to success and aiming for your dreams objectives on a consistent basis of action and thought.

S-T-O-P focusing in those things that smell like garbage. Get rid for good from those ghosts that float in your mind and keep you away from reaching the top of your own Mount Everest of success.

Each moment you loose the opportunity to become a step forward, up and closer to reach your dreams, is like flying away and becoming a mile away from your desired heaven.

YOU-CAN-DO-IT!! Then DO-IT focusing on what is really valuable and bright for you.

Kisses and Blessings,

Jamie V.

Happiness is a pure state of mind!

It is SO human to be expecting for the right moment to do the move of our lives, to take that vital decision and complete what has been left to be happy. Yes. When we are in the midst of an adverse situation we usualy believe that circumstances have to be some how self-aligned in order that we decide to be brave and keep going forward.

Listen close- It seemed like if happiness depended on what happens! But it must not be like this. YOUR happiness must depend ONLY on what YOU think. Happiness is not based on what happens but rather on how you interpret a given situation.

I recall that chapter from the fascinanting book from Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra, “Don Quijote de la Mancha”, in which he is traveling mounting his horse “Rocinante”. Don Qujote comes to a certain point in which he finds these huge wind mills.

Don Qujote then wrongly interpret these wind mills are giants attacking him! He starts “fighting” these “giants” and he sincerily believes he is going to beat them. Quijote is fighting them to give honor to Dulcinea, his muse.

I do not need to mention the fact that his spear becomes broken and his body harmed -as well as his pride!- after trying to stab the “giants” with his middle ages spear and having fallen from Rocinante!

Ask your self- Am I fighting wind mills in my life? Am I interpreting some how these present opportunities to grow as problems to keep me out of focusing the real goals of my life?

You and ONLY you have the true answer. Have you been lately fighting “giants” in your family, job or else?

Wake up and realize that being happy will depend only in how you interpret what is going in your life!

I want to encourage you -and my self! – with this last quote from my friend Marcel Proust – “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”.

Shift your state of mind and find happiness right away!!

Blessings and kisses,

Jamie Velasco
Twitter: @EMPOWERurPOWER

If you are scared of failure you’ll never do anything. Failure is a healthy part of success

Since the very day we started our school training in our tender days, we were tought to consider failure as something to be, by all means avoided. When I failed in my kindergarden years, my teacher would kindly send a report to my parents letting them know about my ugly failures.

How typical it is to witness a parent giving a tough time to her child because she had this “stupid” idea and went beyond the family status quo and did something crazy as dismantling a clock because she was curious about it.

Could you imagine what would have happened if Christopher Colombus had quit in pursuing his dreams? What if he had just aborted his goal and had stopped cherishing his most precious dreams?

As far as I remember I hadn´t seen one sinlge toddler leaving her process to learn walking after some stumbles and falls. Can you imagine a toddler thinking- “Oh, no, I have falled three times today. This thing of walking is not meant for me”.

So then why we tend to give up in our pursuit of reaching our goals and conquering our dreams? The answer is that we were trained to be terrified to fail and feel embarrased about it. Our own ego and expectations are part of these bunch of “bad guys” holding us to triumph and repeating time after time in our hearts and souls- “You see, I told you. You will never be strong, intelligent or brave enough to be successful”.

Getting beyond the difficult challenges will require persistence and diligence, and not listening to those “bad guys” hammering our deepest self love and pride.

Hey! You were born to be successful. Go for it! Consider failures as part of the process in your path to reach that awesome life you were sent to have.

You can count me as your friend to help you shift from that conditioning “you-must-not-fail” to the most healthy one “failure-is-part-of-your-success”.

Kisses and Blessings,

Jamie Velasco
Twitter: @EMPOWERurPOWER

Adversity introduces a woman to herself. ~Unknown

We all have images of who we are. We have a concept of who we might be and what we could decide if we were at a given situation. We also are fast to address what we would do if we were another person who´s given a number of circumstances around her. And awesomely it looks like if we were that other individual we would certainly do things right! We have this self-distorted idea of ourselves being the wisest individual ever when it´s a matter of having just an opinion regarding a third party.

But our moment to show all these wonderful things we keep inside will have its turn at some point in our lives. And it will be then when that richness inside of us will have its chance to show who we really are. In that very moment it will not be ONLY ideas but we will be displaying what we actualy have inside our heads and hearts.

How often we know of somebody who says she will do this when the right circumstances arrive just to find later that she didn´t do even half when the opportunity showed its face? Why does this happen so frequently? Because talking is very, very easy but performing requires your heart and will in action both at the same time playing the symphony of your life.

In that very moment of adversity you have the unique and special elements needed to show yourself who really dwells inside you. It´s the chance for you to become who you are and show that you can. Make sure your dreams are truly cherished by yourself and your goals are absoultely clear since these two stars will be like compasses in the middle of the night of adversity.

In your attempt to achieve your dreams you will probably have to boldly face your family´s opinions and discouragements. You probably will have to deal with your mates´ frustrations and resentments. And most of all, it will almost be sure you will have to fight against your OWN scares and deepest fears. But then again- This is your chance to realize what you have in you!! The real opportunity for success lies within you, not in the circumstances or in the opinions of others about you. Don´t you EVER forget it!

In the morning your determination has to have the power of the sun, so that by night when you go to sleep you can feel the peace and fresh light of satisfaction of the clear moon. One is reflection of the other.

Now the question is- Have you been introduced to yourself?

Kisses and Blessings,

Jamie Velasco

Wise men put their trust in ideas and not in circumstances. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

How easy we fall in this hole of diversion called “problems”. From time to time we have to face certain adverse circumstances and if we don´t do it boldly and from a very positive stand point, they will become ugly and dark monsters neebling our soul and dreams.

Let´s focus on the true inner part of our ideas and keep pursuing them. We all are gifted and capable to generate great ideas but as some one told me- not all of us unwrap that gift. LOL. Each person is responsible for her own life creation and ideas. God sets the board on which we are to play, but hey! the move is ONLY ours! We have to keep in mind that every obstacle we have to confront has a blessing hidden within and no one but us is to look for it, find it and take it! Obstacles are beaten with ideas put in action!

Ideas are like awesome treasures waitng to be found. But they can only be found, and let me stress it a little bit more, O-N-L-Y by those who keep their eyes on the goal.

I finish this post today with this enlightning quote from Mary Kay Ash- “A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.”

Kisses and Blessings,

Jamie V.

Each time we judge someone, we loose the opportunity to love that person.

How frequently it is our tendency is to judge somebody based on what we perceive through our senses. This happens too often and it is so sad. We lack perspective and wisdom when we do such an awful thing. We forget that each individual is a garden in herself in which different kinds of flowers, colors and fragrances dwell. When we judge another human we limit ourselves to walk happily through that awesome and unique garden.

By judging a friend, a neighbour, a relative or simply someone walking down the street we are truly defining who we really are and what limitations we see in ourselves. Let me explain my self- If I judge another person´s outfit or dress style, I am really saying that I am not satisfied with my OWN clothes, body, or even worse, with my inner self.

Instead of judging another person we should acknowledge that God dwells in our neighbours and remember that other humans are God´s way of telling us there is richness in diversity and uniqueness. There is an awesome voyage of discovery in having new eyes and heart when looking to new souls landscapes.

One handy and convenient action is that when we notice a negative thought about someone we know or have contact with, let it pass like the wind and breath a beautiful idea to show love to that garden of God- i.e. that other human.

Each time I am in a situation in which I can judge my friend or neighbour, I can transform that dark and ugly temptation into a powerful moment to show love to her or him right there and then. It is your brightright to have a direct experience with God and attract good positive things to your own life-garden.

Remember that life shrinks or expands in proportion to one´s love to others.

Kisses and Blessings,

Jamie V.