What is Success?

What we are cooking today is a recipe for success… but it is not just a recipe, it is also a way of life.  It is how I live my life, and it’s how I hope the rest of the world lives theirs.  Combining these ingredients and mixing them together… what we get is Phoebe’s brain.  And as you all know, a lot goes on in there… a lot of creativity, powerful thoughts, but also a lot of emotions and wonders.  What I am going to try and do for you all today is explain each piece and each particle of who I am, because I think you can’t have success without being your truest self.  Once you reach and once you are able to understand your needs and wants, only then can we go that inch farther towards success in all areas of life.

Let’s start by just turning the oven on.  Sometimes, starting is the hardest part.  Actually, it usually IS that hardest part.  Pushing that button and setting it to whatever degree you may need is hard.  We get distracted, we wind up using the microwave instead, we may even turn it to the wrong degree, and we sometimes wind up walking away and full on ordering takeout instead.  But start, always start.  Push that button, turn it up to 400 degrees because 375 just doesn’t cut it.   

What we do next is measure out and whisk the dry ingredients.  These are the ingredients that are usually on a shelf somewhere in your fridge/brain and semi hard to reach, you may need a little lift. So, feel free to consult a friend or family member with help on these.  These ingredients don’t get used too often, but they are powerful and without them there would be no Phoebe’s brain and there would be no success.  They are also really messy and hard to process and understand.  If you mix too fast, the ingredients pop up out of the bowl and you are left with a splatter of powder across your kitchen table.  You are left with all these beliefs and no real understanding of them and how they fit into your life.  So, go slow, and process in your own time.  Develop your own opinions and understands of each of these.  

Please add to your mixing bowl with a whisk attachment the following:

·      ¼ cup of being able to see the bigger picture

·      2 cups of knowing right from wrong

·      1 cup of standing up for what you believe in, and knowing when to apologize

·      ½ cup of seeing the best in people and truly believing that there is a eutopia out there

·      3 cups of sensitivity and being in touch with your emotions

Set that bowl aside and save for later.

Next we work with the wet ingredients.  These have more texture to them, there is more room for differences.  These are the kind of ingredients that come to us as we grow.  These are the kind of ingredients that can also change with time. These are the kind of ingredients that make us special and differentiate ourselves from the other billions of people on this earth.  That make me, me.  And they make you, you.  

In standard mixing bowl with a paddle attachment please combine:

·      1 cup of true power

·      1 cup of strength, both mental and physical

·      1/3 of perseverance

·      2 cups of creativity and design (measure this out carefully, you don’t want to spill any)

·      2 cups of love.  Make sure to get the unconditional kind.  You don’t want anything else.

·      ½ of family

·      ½ of supportive friends

·      ¼ of tears, because we all need some tears to see the rainbow

Then slowly combine the dry ingredients into the wet.  Be really careful not to over mix.  When I over mix, that’s me over thinking.  And not being able to really process and see clearly my own thoughts and emotions.  It’s me thinking of the whole world all at once and feeling the pressure to make it better on my own.  It’s me taking on someone else’s thoughts as my own because I feel the weird need to.  It’s me not knowing what’s right and what’s wrong because its sometimes all just too much.  This is when I have to turn the mixer down.  Take a second to clean up.  Process what I personally feel without other opinions, and develop my own sense of, well… me.

Once I am able to come to a place where the mix is just right, and it’s just me… that is when we really get to have fun.  The fun stuff is the last layer, the layer on top.  That people see, before they see the true deep Phoebe.  It’s what makes me love chocolate chip cookies.  It’s what makes me have to pet a dog no matter what.  It’s what makes me laugh when I see some trip.  It’s what makes me sad when I watch a sad movie. It’s the little things in life and the little things in me.

 Please add and hand stir in:

·      1 tablespoon of fluffy pillows

·      1/3 a cup of dancing drunk on a dancefloor to a cover band with your best friends

·      ¼ a cup of sleepy cuddles and holding hands

·      1 tablespoon of just being weird because… why not.

·      A sprinkle of pink

·      A shot of tequila

·      A whole bag of chocolate chips – semi sweet please, because they get sweeter as you combine them with other ingredients.

·      1 cup of puppy smells and dog kisses 

Once all of those have been combined together, please pour into your prepared baking dish.

Before you open the oven and bake these treats, please add on a pinch of imagination.  I believe that we as humans, live to imagine.  We live each day just thinking what tomorrow can bring.  And what if, each day was just better than the next.  Imagine that. 

That’s what phoebes brain does…

Bake for 20 minutes and enjoy

main photo credit: https://kingsophiesworld.co.uk