A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because her trust is not on the branch but on its own wings.  Always believe in yourself.“

When you were born, you believed in yourself.  You knew your purpose.  You trusted the Divine.

Then it happened…you began to believe in the illusion around you.  What other people thought and believed became your truth because you wanted to belong and be a part of something.  The fear of being alone drives more self-limiting behaviors than any other fear.  You began to move from your heart guiding you to your mind guiding you.  The mind is a beautiful tool, if used correctly.  We began to individualize our minds and then believed we were separate from everything and everyone around us.  We felt alone…the one feeling we were trying to avoid.

Whatever your beliefs might be, know this…the human mind is simply the place where we individualize God.  What if your life was about letting go of your self-created limiting beliefs and instead letting God be God as YOU?

Our world is transforming.  What is “breaking down” is not the world, but the consciousness that created it.  We did that…now it is our turn to balance what has been done.  The confidence you have in yourself does not come from anything external; it comes from that silent place within that is YOU.  You can do and be anything you wish…your only job is to define those wishes, find that peaceful place within and allow the brilliant tapestry to unfold.  On the surface it may look broken, not how you imagined, and maybe even frightening.  The path you ended up on may not be the one you imagined.  Know that everything in the Universe happens for the highest good.  Souls do sacrifice their time here so others can learn what they need to learn and fulfill their purpose.  When a tragedy occurs, instead of focusing on the horrible aspects of it, step back and look deeper.  See people coming together, helping each other and letting compassion win.  We must believe we scripted what we did in our lives for a reason, knowing we could handle all that has occurred and will occur.

Life is not so much about living…it is about allowing life to come through as YOU.

Stop focusing on what may or may not happen to the foundation on which you find yourself standing.  Look forward, take a breath and believe in yourself.  You are so special God chose you to be here at this time.  He is living through you to experience life AS you.  The answers are there…you just have to silence your mind enough to hear them.

We love you just as you are.  No strings attached…promise.

When you come to the edge of the light that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen:  there will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.”  ~Patrick Overton

Believing in you,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“The next time that a piece of your life breaks off and falls away, try to remember that what is Real cannot be lost, and then give thanks that what is false must always prove itself so.” ~Rev. Angela Peregoff

Illusion #1:  It is better for me to live with a presently known problem than it is to face a future filled with unknown possibilities. 

Illusion #2:  I am useless and insignificant in life.

Illusion #3:  What others think of me is more important than what I think of myself.

Illusion #4:  It is possible to succeed in life without having to learn through mistakes and failures.

Illusion #5:  By reliving past, painful moments I will somehow be able to resolve them.

Illusion #6:  In order to succeed, I must stay with what I know is possible so as not to suffer disappointment.

Illusion #7:  I must be like everyone else (the “tribe”) in order to survive, fit in and be accepted.

Illusion #8:  I only believe what I can see and can prove exists.

Illusion #9:  If I do not remember it, it must not have happened.

Illusion #10:  What I think, say and do does not matter.

Maybe, one day, you will wake up and know that even your very thoughts matter; that events that you do not remember consciously, such as being born, choosing your parents and choosing the lessons you wanted to learn in this lifetime, actually did happen; that the most “real” things in this life cannot be touched, smelled, seen or tasted but are felt with the heart and soul; that your uniqueness, your un-likeness of everyone else around you, is the exact reason why you are here; that unless you venture into the unknown, the “impossible,” you will never know what you are capable of; that your mind does not know the difference between what is real and what is not real – it believes what is real is where you put your attention, so reliving past events makes them feel real again; that what you call mistakes and failures are the very moments for which you came to this Earth – they are the lessons in your “school”; that the only person who you should be seeking out acceptance from is yourself; that just being alive means you are significant – God wastes nothing and has a grand purpose for everything; and that your true power, the beauty of life and miracles, lie in those unknown moments.

Now that would be a hell of a day… 😉

“Life is not what you see, but what you’ve projected.  It’s not what you’ve felt, but what you’ve decided.  It’s not what you’ve experienced, but how you’ve remembered it.  It’s not what you’ve forged, but what you’ve allowed.  It’s not who’s appeared, but who you’ve summoned.  And it’s not where you’ve been, but where you are going.”

~Notes from “the Universe”

Onward to ascension,

Chris
Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

My name is Chris and I am a “fixer.”

I am attracted to people who have problems and think that if I only make them happy, do something different, change myself or sacrifice my time or resources they will change and be happy.  Somewhere in my life I felt as if it was my responsibility to make others happy and worse yet, if they were not happy, it was my fault.

Can anyone out there relate to that?

I think many of you can…especially the women out there.  Not that men cannot be fixers, but women have a natural tendency to nurture and make people feel better therefore this role of “fixer” tends to stick more with the female gender.

Here is what I have learned (and trust me, I have a lot more learning to do in this area):

• Wanting to fix others is a symptom that there is something within us that needs to be fixed.  It may not necessarily be the same problem, but we tend to seek to fix someone else when we are avoiding fixing ourselves.  Projection at its best!
• No one needs fixing.  I know some of you may be thinking that statement is crazy.  There are people in our world who are doing some crazy things!  As humans, we have a tendency to want things to run smooth, feel good all of the time and not change.  It is the “crazy” that makes us pay attention to what needs to be balanced and changed…not only with us personally, but with the world.
• It is never your responsibility to make someone else happy, it is theirs.  Yes, things we do for others may temporarily make them feel better but happiness comes from within.  It is a state of being that manifests from a sense of peace within.  No one can give you that but you.
• Problems are a blessing in disguise, whether they are ours or someone else’s.  They are the very thing that helps us grow and become the people we are meant to be.  Problems push us to our limits, ever so painfully, to help us see what we can become and what is possible.
• We are only responsible to live our own life.  I don’t know about you, but my life has enough challenges of its own.  When we try to make other people’s problems ours by trying to fix the problem for them, we are meddling in something that is not our business.  We are living their life and ours.  How do we know that the very problem they are now having isn’t one they may need to experience to learn the biggest lesson of their lives…when they solve it themselves.  We cannot take away other peoples lessons.  That is exactly what we do when we fix a problem for them.

So, what to do?  How do you overcome the urge to fix?  Be aware of the fact that the urge to fix is an urge to control something that is out of your control.  You cannot control other people’s behaviors or decisions.  The only things under your control are the decisions you make for yourself, your behaviors and your attitudes.  Your behaviors and who you choose to be is always the greatest teacher for those around you.  People listen more with their eyes than their ears.  They watch you.  It is our nature.  Monkey see, monkey do…remember?

A recovering fixer,

Chris

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

This is an excerpt taken from Chapter 4, “The Power of Choice” from “Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa. Click here to purchase your copy!

“We did not come here to make choices. We already made our choices. What we are here to do is to learn to live into our choices and understand why we made them.” ~The Oracle, “The Matrix”

Choice is the most important gift we have been given in this human incarnation. Free will to choose what we want to experience and what we want out of this particular life is truly a gift. I find it hard to fathom how some individuals do not believe that they can create their own reality:  If this were not the case, why would God have given us the will to choose?

Having this gift requires responsibility—the responsibility to be aware of the highest, best, and most thoughtful choices. Not just the ones that benefit us personally, but the ones that benefit mankind as a whole. Choice implies conscious awareness. That is why becoming aware of what is limiting you is the first step. Once you are aware of something, you now hold that awareness in your conscious mind. It no longer sits in your subconscious mind, hiding and masking itself as fear. You now are conscious of it, which means you now have the responsibility to do something about it, to make a different choice.

“All we have are the choices we make, one at a time. And from such choices are created larger events of humanity. It is simply up to each of us to trust that every choice we make matters.” ~Caroline Myss

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

This is taken from Chapter 3 ~ Overcoming Limiting Beliefs from “Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa, published by Balboa Press.  Click here to purchase your copy!

“One great way to see where your fears lie is to bring them up in your mind for a brief moment in time so you can shed some light on them.

A wonderful exercise I have my coaching clients do is to list seven things in your life you want so bad but are scared to death will never happen:  Your “Seven Impossible Things.” Why seven? Because seven is a very sacred number and there is a certain power in having to force yourself to think of more than just three or five things. You have to go deeper into your mind and deeper into your fears.

The key to the exercise is to list the seven things you want and then walk through all of the reasons why you think it won’t happen…what you fear will get in the way of it happening. Then, in a column next to it, list all of the reasons how it could happen.

When you take the time to really think through and put on paper your fears and then possible solutions to those fears, the fears lose their power. The fears turn simply into obstacles that can be easily overcome with a plan and a little faith. You then are also focusing on what you want to have happen instead of all of the reasons why it cannot happen, using the power of your thoughts to manifest exactly what you need.

Having a plan, is one of the ways to overcome fear; another way is to understand and know that Divine is there to help you on your journey. You are never alone.”

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“Hunger, thirst, cold, fatigue, your own physical and mental limitations – you will feel all of these.  This teaches you about nature, more than that, you come face to face with yourself.”  ~Willi Unsoeld

If your life has been anything like mine over the last year, high and low tides rather than “smooth sailing” has been the norm.  I personally have noticed that whenever I am in the middle of a “low” I am anxiously awaiting for things to get back to “normal.”  In the middle of tears the other day and feeling pitifully sorry for myself, I stopped in my tracks and asked “what the heck is normal anyway?”

I realized that, to me, “normal” meant having absolutely no bad feelings or events happening in my life.  I get to stay in my daily routine, uninterrupted and pleasantly invite the highs into my life, praying for the lows to stay at bay.  If that is the case, in the last 42 years my life has rarely been normal!  Life is easy to live when things are going the way you think they should.  You go about your life with ease and are feeling pretty good about yourself.  The minute something happens that knocks you out of that routine, something that makes you uncomfortable, we feel “off” and try desperately to get back to our comfortable routine.

I recently had the pleasure of attending a workshop by Gregg Braden, author of the new book “Deep Truth.”  Gregg addressed this idea of waiting to return to normal using our economy as an example.  When our economy takes a down turn, many people put their lives on hold, waiting to spend their money or take that trip until things return to “normal.”  What I find interesting is that when things get back to normal, it is never how it was before anyway.  Something (or someone) has always changed.  Has it really gotten back to normal or has enough time gone by that we are now just used to the new way things are…the new normal?

As humans we do not like discomfort.  We try desperately to stay comfortable and predict the future events of our lives.  We like to know what is going to happen when, how others are going to react to us…even go so far as to structure our lives around the weather.

I don’t know about you, but I personally don’t like waiting.  Instead of waiting for my life to get back to “normal” I decided to re-define my personal definition of normal.

“Normal” = a state of centered consciousness and balance an individual maintains no matter how the outward circumstances of the individuals life present themselves.

I am here to live my life, not to wait for it.  Yes, during trying times, it is sometimes much harder to find the joy and balance we so enjoy but those feelings are simply a state of consciousness, which means WE have control over them.  We so often give the power of our lives over to outside circumstances, people and events and then allow our lives to get out of control, all the while blaming someone else for our misfortune and bad feelings.  Ultimately, YOU are in charge of your life, your feelings and your thoughts.  Instead of waiting for things to be normal and perfect in order to feel better, create your own state of being by choosing how you want to feel and do what you need to do to make that so.

Life will never be perfect if you constantly expect it to be.  You must create your own perfection.

Light and love to you for a “normal” day,

Chris

“Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa published by Balboa Press.

Click here to purchase your copy!

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Recently, I had the honor of being a guest on Madison Morgan’s radio show, “Life in the Fast Lane,” which airs out of Sedona, AZ. Please enjoy this 45 minute live radio interview where we discuss my new book, “Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live.”

Note:  From my website, click on the play arrow to listen or you can click here to be redirected to play.

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/75340252″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Enjoy!

Chris

Click here to purchase your copy!

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“More than any other kind of knowledge we fear knowledge of ourselves, knowledge that might transform our self-esteem and our self-image…While human beings love knowledge and seek it – they also fear it.”
~Abraham Maslow

Abraham Maslow was a brilliant psychologist who is most famous for the human hierarchy of needs he created, referred to as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, or Maslow’s Pyramid.  The foundation for this theory lies in the premise that humans are ultimately seeking self-actualization, or in other words, reaching our full potential.  We must have our basic needs met, such as food, shelter, safety, being loved and having self-esteem before this can be accomplished.

For those who are unaware of the story of Jonah in the Bible, Jonah was asked by God to go to the city of Nineveh to warn the people there that if they did not change their ways, destruction would follow.  Jonah, fearful of his destiny, chose to go to a city named Tarshish instead.  On his way to Tarshish, God sent a storm after him which alerted the others on the ship that Jonah was a danger so they threw him overboard.  Jonah was then swallowed by a whale and spent three days in the belly of that whale.  Upon being spit out by the whale, Jonah went on to fulfill his destiny.

The Jonah Complex refers to the fear of our own greatness…the fear of success.  We all have a destiny – a unique reason we were brought here to earth at this time that only we can fulfill.  Reaching our potential is up to us.  We must learn to look at life and ask questions such as, “What am I supposed to learn from this situation/person?”  The storms in our life are not punishments by God.  They are not karmic situations happening to balance the scale.  They are signs from above telling us we are no longer on our path.  How else can God get the attention of humans who have a hard time believing what they cannot see?  My own illness 10 years ago was just that…a sign that I was not on my path.  God does not wish harm upon us, we allow things in our lives to happen (some of which are pre-scripted) to give us yet another opportunity to learn something about ourselves.

You are the only one who can choose what path you walk.  Watch your environment, look into your life and see if there is a pattern in the things that have happened to you and instead of asking, “Why did this happen to me?” ask “What is it that I am not seeing?”  ”What do I need to learn to get back on my path…to get back to a state of joy?”  Please show me the way.

Marianne Williamson states the Jonah Complex the best:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us…and as we decide to let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Forging ahead on my path,

Chris

“Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa published by Balboa Press.

Click here to purchase your copy today!

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.

“To believe in the things you can see and touch is no belief at all – but to believe in the unseen is a triumph and a blessing.”
~Abraham Lincoln

I had an amazing experience happen to me this week…I became a Grandma for the first time!  Little Noah James came into the world on January 8^th and what a sacred little soul he is!  2012 was a rough year for many and I think we all breathed a sigh of relief when the clock turned to 2013 hoping easier times were on the way.  My little man came in at just the right time!

Throughout our lives, we see many things…some good and some not so good.  We tend to believe that what we see is what is real.  If we can touch it, taste it, hear it, and see it then that is our proof of its reality.  During my life, the most amazing experiences I have had have been “surreal.”  Synchronistic events that put me in the right place at the right time, a chance meeting with someone who seems to say just what you need to hear, smelling the scent of a loved one who has passed away making you wonder if they are near, and even the miraculous birth of child.

At this time, the most important job you have to do is focus on F.A.T.  No, I don’t mean the excess adipose tissue around your belly and behind.  I mean Feelings, Attention and Thoughts.  Just like the fat on your body keeps you warm, protects your organs and a certain amount of it is necessary for a healthy body, so follows that your feelings, thoughts and attention keep you warm, safe and spiritually healthy.

Your feelings are the physical manifestation of guidance from above.  We all have different beliefs about God and what is beyond this world we live in, but regardless of your beliefs, one thing we all have in common is that we all have feelings.  There are really only two feelings…good and bad.  The formula is simple.  Once you learn to listen to your feelings, you will know that anytime you feel good, you are moving in the right direction.  If you are feeling bad, you are off of your path.  Pause and either wait if you are not sure what to do or make a different choice.

Where we focus our attention is the exact thing that magnetizes people, places, things and situations into our lives.  Focus on the things that you want…focus on your dreams.  Stop beating the drum of “what is” and beat the drum of “what is possible.”

Your thoughts are in your control whether you believe that or not.  Focus on the thoughts that make you feel good.  Your thoughts are connected to your attention and where your attention is dictates how you feel.  Your brain does not work in a vacuum.  If you have a not so good thought, don’t just ignore it, replace it with one that is in alignment with where you want to go and what you want in your life.  Replace it with a thought that makes you feel better.

I challenge you to focus on F.A.T. and watch how your life begins to transform before your eyes.  Believe in what you cannot see.  What if there is a world just beyond ours where we can manifest what we want instantly, feel good all of the time and have a life of abundance, unconditional love and joy?  That world exists…you just haven’t created it yet.

“Granny” Chris

“Choosing the Life You Were Born to Live:  How Changing Your Thoughts Will Change Your Life” by Chris Sopa published by Balboa Press.

Click here to purchase your copy!

Chris Sopa is founder and owner of Chris Sopa International, Inc. You can learn more about her at www.ChrisSopa.com. Find her at Facebook.com/ChrisSopaInternational, Twitter @ChrisSopa, LinkedIn, and Google+.