Paintings start with our urge to paint, followed by an inkling, a germ of an idea.

Give it some thought and, if you’re lucky, or in a good frame of mind, your idea grows.

Sometimes paintings begin with something seen on a walk.

As your idea grows, your excitement grows.

As your excitement grows, your sense of urgency grows, until finally, one day, you begin to take action.

Action Steps begin with an active imagination.

"Life" in progress - Patrice Federspiel

Action steps begin the process of bringing the painting to life.

Purposely imagine yourself starting that painting you want to start.

This builds momentum and gets the ball rolling.

More actions steps come to mind.

Take them.

Take enough action steps and before you know it, you are working on that germ of an idea you had hours, days, months, or even years ago.

STOP taking all action and ideas begin to fade.

You will forget a faded idea.

UNLESS …

IF the idea really strong, it will haunt you until you overcome your resistance (fear), and start taking action again.

OR it runs out of patience and finds another person to work with.

Yes, this can happen!

It’s always your choice.

Imagine a beautiful, colorful stained-glass window, 30’ long. Now imagine a stone has broken one of the panes. 

Rev. Margaret Stortz recently wrote an essay on this subject and noted that even though the broken pane was small, and not brightly colored, its shattering was deeply felt by all who saw it.

So too when one of us dies (transitions, passes, choose your verb), those of us left behind feel the loss deeply.

People die everyday and we will too. 

When I was almost 25, my brother Ricky died in a car accident (if he were still with us, he’d be known as Rick).

His death was devastating to me and to my family. I went from being one of six kids in the family to one in five remaining.

Never before had I understood the vast difference one number, one person can make in the fabric of our lives.

Yes, It’s hard to “lose” someone to the inevitable. Yes, our lives are forever changed when a loved one dies.

Yes, I believe in the value of then feeling that loss, of remembering the good of that person, and the lessons learned as a result of their presence in our lives.

I am so grateful to Ricky for teaching me so much about life and death. Of course I’d rather he not be the one who taught me, but I’m glad to have learned them.

A broken pane in a stained glass window can be repaired and replaced. The space left when a loved one dies isn’t reparable. It’s something we live with forever more.

All of us are touched by deaths of people we love. Death is part of the continuum of life. It’s not death we abhor, it’s the feeling of loss, the sense that someone vital to our life is missing.

Yet as long as we can deeply feel their presence in our heart, they are never truly gone.

The time it takes to mend our shattered hearts is equal to the importance those deaths hold in our lives.

I’m sending this out to you on my Birthday, a day I love to celebrate (seriously, I still love it as much as I did when I was seven years old!). 

Why am I sending a message about living and dying on my birthday?

Here’s the thing. No matter who we are or what we do with our lives, each and every one of us matters to the fabric of the world. 

We are transitory, just visitors on the planet, yet each of us makes a difference. 

We never know how our lives affect those of others. Whether or not we know those other people, we are connected. 

Our lives affect the fabric of life. 

What difference do you want to make with your life? Is your star shining?

What difference do you see yourself making? 

Are the answers to those questions the same or at least similar?

What can you do today to nudge those two answers closer together?

How can you brighten the star that you are?

These are thoughts to have on occasion. We see ourselves in a mirror every day, yet reflection is a tool we often take for granted.  

Pausing to reflect on life, and our place within it, is a tool used to craft a life that matters. We want our life to matter to ourselves AND let’s remember that it matters to everyone else (even just a teeny bit to those we don’t know).

Good habits are golden! It takes 21–28 consecutive days to “deeply root” a habit into our psyche. If you’ve been doing something for 20 days and then you skip a day, you have to start over at day one!

I skipped two days of a new habit I’d hoped to make permanent this week. Darn it! 

I’d gotten into the habit of waking up at five a.m. and doing my deep writing and inner work before going to the gym or starting my day. 

I was so excited about this new habit that I even coaxed myself out of bed one day last week when I really wanted to stay put.

And then yesterday, I just couldn’t do it. 

Keanu and I had both worked so hard over the weekend at the Art Fest at Lanikuhonua in Ko`Olina that I needed the rest.

While it’s true, we did work hard, and I did need the rest, I’m still disappointed that I wasn’t able to push myself out of bed yesterday … or today.

To keep my newly restarted “wake-up-n-at-em” habit, I either have to change my wake-up time to six (which is easier) or start over at day one and wake up at five tomorrow.

I haven’t yet decided which option will win.

Two other thoughts are vying for my attention this morning:
“Do Less and Imagine More” and
“Intention is an Action Word”

Those thoughts are connected, and both are worthy of consideration.

When I fully intend to get myself up at five, it’s easier to do so. It’s also easy to imagine myself getting up at five and having the quiet house all to myself.

The house is still quiet at six and getting up then is easier.

The issue isn’t really when I get up, it’s more about what I do with my time once I’m up.

It’s about Clarity of Purpose and Singularity of Focus! Again! (Yay, I’m still on track!)

Setting an intention for the day, and then imagining yourself living your intention, is a great habit to start, no matter what time of day you arise.

When we set an intention and imagine ourselves acting on our intention, we pave the way for it to happen. We put ourselves on alert to see new paths or doors that open to help us accomplish what we’ve set out to do. 

Deeply Rooted, Rising Higher — Good habits, firmly in place, create a solid foundation and set us up for success!

What’s your intention for this glorious day ahead?

Those were the exact words running through my mind over and over again while I tried to sleep. I finally got out of bed and wrote them down. Obviously this was an important message.

I’m glad I did that! These words have continued to keep me focused the past few weeks and I’m expecting them to last me the entire year. 

They are my “words of the year.”

For the past five years, I’ve been following Christine Kane’s method of choosing a word for the year rather than making “resolutions.” You can try it too, just click on this link: https://christinekane.isrefer.com/go/WOTY2015/Patrice1

Last year my word was “risk” and my plan was to take more of them.

While I didn’t do any daredevil stunts, I did enter (and win) a contest from SCORE last February, which included an all-expenses paid trip to Phoenix to attend a small business conference.

Then, before I even sent my entry in, I saw a real, live Wallaby alongside the road in the Ko`Olau Mountains! I felt like a winner even before I’d won the official prize.

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This year of “Sweet Sixteen” calls for more. It’s time for me to “step things up another notch.” 

It’s time for me to be more up front about what it is that I do through my art and my teaching (clarity of purpose), and focus on getting my message out to you and to more people.

Clarity of Purpose: 
I paint the essence of living aloha; and I teach others to paint so they can more easily access their creative inner self to enrich their lives.

Painting is more than something to do or to see. Paintings can be a way to help people grow in their ability to connect with their inner being, and thereby become their very best self!

You can connect more to your inner self by feeling the energy in my paintings AND/OR by learning to paint using my methods.

Singularity of Focus:
That could be a little harder because I have at least four, make that FIVE, areas of focus: Painting, Teaching, Writing, Business, and PLAY. 

Play time and down time are extremely important to a “solo-preneur,” —and often the first to get cut from my schedule. Not good!

I’ve laid out my year in broad brushstrokes. The details will be filled in as the days and weeks progress. 

Paintings work that way too. 

We start out painting big shapes, with broad brushstrokes, and we fill in the details as we continue to paint.

“God” is in the details (many people say it’s the “devil,” but I disagree). While it’s true the details can trip us up, they are also where we discover the most information (this is a clue for me and for you).